


Valley of Plenty

by aileenrose



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: CHEFS KISS, Chef Geralt, Chef Jaskier, Food Porn, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Modern AU, One-sided Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:01:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aileenrose/pseuds/aileenrose
Summary: Geralt's brother has died, and now he is raising a child on his own. The last thing he needs is an annoying sous-chef who won't leave him alone.Or, a variously loose and faithful adaptation of the classic rom-com No Reservations.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 253
Kudos: 327





	1. Chapter 1

Geralt should be at work, but he isn’t.

He should be at work, and at work, he’d be thinking about how Coën and Cirilla were finally coming to visit—a years-overdue visit, already waiting in his apartment for him once he got back from the restaurant, because he could trust Coën to always find his spare key no matter how long since they’d seen each other last.

Their bags would be piled in the hallway. The TV would be blasting from the spare bedroom. Geralt would have a take-home box of food in his hand, and Coën would be giving him a huge hug while worming the still-warm box from his grip, and Ciri would be standing shyly just behind her father, waiting to say hello.

But all of that won’t be happening, now.

Geralt clears his throat. He’s standing in the doorway of the hospital room, looking at the small figure curled away from him.

“Will you call me when she wakes up?”

“Could be hours,” the doctor says. “Days. Hits to the head like this, it’s never easy to say how long it will take.”

Geralt doesn’t say anything. He’s been watching Ciri for two hours, now, and every once in a while a tremor will run through her body, almost too small to notice. But Geralt notices.

“But yes,” the doctor says, taking a step from the room. “If you’re not here, we’ll call you right away.”

“Fine,” Geralt says. It’s only the work of a few more minutes to shrug on his bulky leather jacket, put a hand softly on top of Ciri’s sleeping head. Then he goes.

White Wolf is busy when he walks through the door, deep in the weeds of the dinner rush. Cahir’s off seating a couple—they must be worth impressing, because his smile is even more sanctimonious than usual. A few of the servers catch his eye, eyebrows furrowed, but he looks past them. A few of the diners do the same, trying to catch his eye—they know him, Geralt Rivia, one of Chicago’s most well-known executive chefs, James Beard winner, how he studied under everyone worth studying under at the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park. They know him because word gets around about him—that it’s not a matter of if, but when, the restaurant will get a Michelin star thanks to his menu, that he’s the stateside version of Gordon Ramsay. It’s true that he yells in the kitchen sometimes, but only when he’s in a mood. Otherwise his glare can accomplish enough.

He’s pretty sure he’s in a mood right now.

Triss, the sous-chef, looks up when he enters the kitchen, heavily pregnant beneath her apron, a splatter of sauce down her front. She looks like she’s about to make a joke about his lateness, but then—looking into his face—doesn’t.

“Cahir’s been trying to get in touch,” she says. “Everything okay?”

Geralt ties on his apron, hands quickly pulling the knot tight behind his back. Then he does the same with his hair, pulling it back from his face. “Fine,” he says. “Is the kitchen running up to speed?”

“Yes chef,” she raps out, stepping aside for him to stand next to her.

It is easy to sink into the chaos of the kitchen, barking out instructions, fulfilling tickets, taste-testing. Geralt’s been at White Wolf for four years, but he’s been back of house at restaurants for most of his adult life. Even growing up—him, Eskel, Lambert…Coën—all his foster brothers, they would have been eating ramen, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, until they moved out of the foster home if it hadn’t been for Geralt. He’d been the one to ask Vesemir if he could start cooking for the family while Vesemir worked double shifts to keep them clothed and sheltered. Vesemir had been hesitant at first—thinking of a nine-year-old taking over his kitchen, probably thought Geralt meant to waste money on expensive snacks—but Geralt had worn him down, written out a list of ingredients and how much it would cost a week.

The rare times Vesemir didn’t work, he showed Geralt how to make the food that his Polish mother had made for him—pierogis with ground meat and cabbage, Hunter’s Stew, pork cutlets. It felt important, what Vesemir had shown him. Geralt might not be his biological son, but he was still family in the ways that mattered. It was a concession that Cahir allowed him when they partnered up for White Wolf—that although its menu was mostly “upscale modern American” fare, Geralt had a small corner of the menu to pay homage to his childhood. Hearty food, heavy food. Comfort food. It was something Geralt took pride in, after how hard he had worked all these years, no money, no safety net, no guarantee of success, seeing something of Vesemir reflected in his food.

Geralt realizes his hands are empty. He’s been thinking too hard. On the other side of the counter is Ren, pushing a plated steak his way.

“Asshole on seven’s asking if you’ve ever seen a rare steak before,” she says, offering a weak smile.

Geralt looks at the steak. “That is rare.”

Ren rolls her eyes. “ _More_ rare, I guess,” she says.

Cahir come to Ren’s elbow, smiling in that patronizing way that Geralt hates, that _the-customer-is-always-right_ smile. “Not a problem,” he says. “Fire up another one and move on.”

Geralt gives Cahir a brief nod.

“Rare steak, on the fly,” he says, not turning around or lifting his voice.

“Yes, chef,” comes the answer.

“Everything alright, Geralt?” Cahir asks.

“Fine,” Geralt says. He can feel that he’s gritting his teeth. He’s already been asked twice and doesn’t want to be asked again. Cahir stays waiting, still smiling. Geralt knows what he’s waiting for.

“I was late,” he says. “I… apologize.”

Cahir nods, satisfied. The two of them have a history of butting heads. Geralt thinks it might have started the first time they met. Cahir might have the money and the ingratiation with customers, but Geralt just doesn’t like him—that he asks people to call him _Cal_ instead of Cahir, that he tries to hire kitchen staff without consulting Geralt, that he agrees with obviously wrong customers who think that rare steaks aren’t rare.

Geralt gets lost in the bustle again; it seems only seconds later Ren’s on the other side of the counter again, with her plate of steak returned to him.

“That very same asshole would like to know when they started giving James Beard awards to idiots who don’t know the meaning of rare,” she says.

Geralt’s surroundings seem to blur out of focus then. His fists clench. Maybe another day, he’d let it slide. Maybe any other day.

“I’ll handle it,” he says, clipped.

Cahir is too far away to stop him when he comes out into the dining room, bearing a raw steak on the end of a long-handled meat fork, like it’s a heart skewered on his sword, bleeding red juice across the carpeting. In his periphery, he can see diners turning to watch him, their mouths open.

The asshole at table seven doesn’t see him until Geralt slams the meat fork down into the table in front of him, impaling the steak there.

He stares down at the quivering man. “Is that rare enough for you?” His voice is very soft. The man turns white.

The next thing Geralt knows, he’s in the wine cellar with Cahir, who is gripping his elbow and hissing _what the hell was that all about what has gotten into you—_

“My brother died today,” Geralt says. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud. It freezes the words in Cahir’s mouth; he finally falls silent. “A car crash just outside Chicago.”

“Geralt—” Cahir says.

“His daughter’s in the hospital still,” he says. “She hasn’t woken up.”

Cahir stares.

“Don’t worry,” Geralt says. “I can still work.”

When Cahir talks, it’s the gentlest his voice has ever been. “Geralt, go home,” he says. “Please. For your sake. For your niece’s sake. She needs you now more than we do.”

There is nothing in Geralt that wants to do that. He feels a helpless bubble of anger rise in his throat. It expands, grows bigger, until Geralt is sure he’s about to do something like smash every wine bottle in the cellar, scream himself hoarse. But then it just subsides and he’s left empty.

Because Cahir’s right, even when he’s not normally right about a lot of things in Geralt’s book. He is so used to the job being all-important, eclipsing everything else, that it somehow shorted out the obvious fact that he never should have left Ciri’s bedside. He feels a stab of regret, self-loathing, that she’s still lying there alone where he left her. What is wrong with him, when did he lose that basic human empathy for others? Maybe he is so used to being alone that he assumes the same default for others, even for helpless children like Ciri.

He has to do better.

“Okay,” he says.

“Take as long as you need,” Cahir is saying, ushering him out of the wine cellar. “We’ll be here when you’re ready to come back.”

“Okay,” Geralt says, but by then he’s on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, leather jacket zipped up against the chill, and Cahir’s already inside and can’t hear him.

**

Eskel had gone south to Georgia, where the weather was better. Lambert was living his bachelor dreams in New York. Coën had gone west, to San Francisco, to work in tech, and had never left. When he’d asked Geralt, eleven years ago, if he would be Cirilla’s godfather, Geralt had never thought to say no. He’d meant it, at the time, but it all seemed very distant—a baby niece in a different time zone, a brother committed to being a single dad. The duties of being a godparent had never required more from him than a birthday card for Ciri every year with a fifty dollar bill, the occasional visit when either of the brothers had the time off, which was rare. And none of the brothers were especially good about coming home for the holidays. Vesemir joked that it would take the world ending to bring them all together again.

Coën dying was close enough. Geralt made the three calls—to Georgia, to New York, to the cabin an hour and a half away where Vesemir still lived—and all three were there within a day. The hospital room seemed especially small when filled with the four men, gathered around Ciri sleeping still in her hospital bed.

“Does she know?” Eskel asked.

“No,” Geralt says.

“So when she wakes up—” Lambert says.

“I’ll have to tell her,” Geralt says.

There was a long silence.

“What’s your plan, Geralt?” That was Vesemir. His two brothers looked confused; it was Vesemir who put it together first, what role Geralt would have, now.

“I’ll need to get her things sent from California,” Geralt says. “Move her into the spare room, get her enrolled at school.”

“Huh,” Eskel says. He purses his lips. “Will you have enough time, with your job, for all this?” He doesn’t ask if Geralt is _able_ to do _this_ at all, which Geralt appreciates, as he’s wondering it enough for them all.

“I’ll make time,” Geralt says. They leave it at that.

Lambert’s snoring in a chair, and Eskel and Vesemir gone to get food, when Ciri wakes up. Her eyes slowly wander the room before landing on Geralt, who can only sit and look back.

Ciri’s eyes looked faintly bruised still, and there are cuts along the side of her face, disappearing into her hairline. She doesn’t look confused, though. She doesn’t need a thing explained to her.

“Uncle Geralt,” she says slowly, “my dad is dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Geralt says, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth. It hurts to say this, but he is also a bone-deep relieved that he could be here at this moment, that he is right by her bed when she needs him.

“Okay,” Ciri says. She looks up at the ceiling for a long time, and Geralt watches as a tear rolls from her eye, toward her ear. He leans forward in his chair, rests a hand tentatively on top of hers.

“I’m sorry, Ciri,” he says. “I’ve been sitting here wishing I could tell you something different.”

“But that would be a lie,” Ciri says. There’s a ghost of a smile on her face as she looks up at the ceiling. “And Dad always said that his brother Geralt _never_ lied.”

“Yes,” Geralt says.

“Not even when it hurts,” she says. “Not even then.”

Geralt folds her small hand into his. “I’m sure right now it hurts everywhere.”

Ciri nods. “Everywhere.”

Geralt nods, feeling out of his depth. He’s never around children, and mostly by choice. It’s part of—one of the main reasons, really—why he and Yennefer broke up, because she wanted them, and he didn’t. There’s a certain irony that now, years later, he would find himself with a twelve-year-old stranger who is now a child to him, while Yennefer—as far as he knows—remains child-free.

What can he say to her? How can he make it better? It was different, growing up, because he never knew his biological parents, he only had Vesemir. But his brothers were exactly the same. They cobbled together a family that way. But he can’t relate to Ciri in the way he could with his brothers back then—and he feels a stab of panic, that he might not ever be able to relate to her at all.

Ciri yawns. “It doesn’t hurt here, though,” she says.

“Where?”

“Right here,” she says, and her hand faintly twitches in his.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. We can work with that.”

Ciri is asleep by the time Eskel and Vesemir return, and Lambert finally snores himself awake. But Geralt stays holding her hand.

**

It would be hard, later, for Geralt to remember the weeks that follow. His brothers and Vesemir remain in town, staying with him, which surprisingly works—he gives his bed to Vesemir, gives his brothers the pull-out couch, and he and Ciri share the bed in the spare room. Her room.

His family does work from the sidelines, it seems. Eskel helps to plan the funeral. He stops asking for Geralt’s input when Geralt stares at him when put the question of what color the coffin should be, the flowers.

“Does it _matter_?” Geralt asks, bewildered.

Vesemir and Lambert tackle the selling of the townhouse in San Francisco, helping to move in Ciri’s belongings, the storage room rented for everything else, everything that Ciri might want one day.

Geralt finds the days pass in a disorienting haze—taking Ciri to follow-up appointments at the hospital, helping her to unbox her belongings and make up her room, sitting with her in silence in front of the TV. Ciri doesn’t talk much, but then, neither does Geralt. She seems to find comfort in his presence, at least.

The day of the funeral comes quick. A smatter of Coën’s friends find their way there, a few who Ciri recognizes and talks to. Geralt hangs back and watches, makes sure she doesn’t get overwhelmed in the conversation, in which case he’ll step in. She looks very small and very pale in her black dress. He is so concerned for Ciri that he almost forgets what they are there for, and it is like a punch to the gut when he approaches the coffin—an old photo of Coën sitting on the top of the casket, his smiling face. His brother. The grief is like quicksand; it gets him feet-first. Luckily there’s a chair nearby he can sit in to collect himself.

Then the coffin’s in the dirt, and they are standing in the cemetery, chilled by the cold Chicago wind. Ciri lets Lambert give her his suit jacket when she starts shivering. Then they troop back to Geralt’s apartment, where there’s an assortment of food—casseroles from a concerned neighbor, a takeout pizza, cans of soup from Geralt’s pantry corners. He’s found he hasn’t felt like cooking, which is a feeling he never thought he’d have.

Eskel and Lambert catch red-eyes out. Vesemir leaves last.

“Take care with her,” he says. “You know—”

“I know,” Geralt says. “You’re not very far away at all.”

“You know that Ciri hasn’t been eating,” Vesemir says. “I’ve been watching. Feed her something that’ll stick to her belly.”

Geralt hadn’t noticed, for all he’s been around Ciri. But he can do that, he thinks. It’s what he knows best.

**

A few days after his family leaves, Geralt is coming to realize that he is not equipped to handle Vesemir’s warning at all.

It’s not that Ciri is picky. It’s not, he assumes, that she doesn’t like the food he makes. She just isn’t interested in it. He makes her comfort food—his comfort food, the Polish food from his childhood, but she just looks at it, tired. He makes her fish sticks. He buys her pizza.

“What do you want to eat, if not this?” he asks her.

Her answer is always, _I don’t know_. What did she and Coën eat in California? _I don’t know._

She’ll eat a few bites, then push her plate away. She looks as miserable as he feels. Growing up, food was the easiest way for Geralt to care for others, even if he found it hard to say so outright. If he can’t offer Ciri food, he worries about what he can offer her instead. 

Ciri starts school, and Geralt takes her and squeezes her hand before she disappears off into her classroom. The principal is with him, waiting to escort him back outside.

“Call me, if she has any issues?” he asks. His voice sounds too gruff.

“Of course,” she says.

“She hasn’t been eating—”

“We’ll take care of her,” she says, touching his arm. “We promise.”

There is too much familiarity in the smile she gives him. Geralt doesn’t know if she recognizes him or not—he does have some modicum of fame in culinary circles— but she is still someone who is responding in the way others have in the past. Drawn to his height, his brawn, his hair, his brown eyes that are more yellow than brown. It feels wrong, her smiling like that when he is only here because someone is dead. So he turns away, leaves without her help.

He hadn’t told Cahir that he’d be in just yet. But he finds he would have nothing to do with Ciri gone at school, no reason to just be sitting in the apartment alone. So he decides to stop by White Wolf anyways. Maybe, once he’s there, that strange block that has been keeping from him wanting to cook will melt away.

By the time he gets there, it’s the prep time between lunch and dinner, and the place is quiet. As he walks toward the kitchen, though, he frowns. He hears something—music? He has never allowed music in his orderly kitchen, with its sterile counters and knife-edged attention to detail, precision. He feels trepidation as he opens the kitchen door.

There are several travesties that assault Geralt’s senses, then. The first is the music, so loud that someone would have to shout to be heard—and someone is, shout-talking and singing along.

That someone is not anyone familiar to Geralt. He has a head of dark hair, turned away from Geralt, and a ladle in his hand that he’s swinging in the air like he’s conducting the song. He’s also wearing, beneath his starched white apron, a hideously lurid pair of pants patterned in blue and yellow and red, and Crocs of an eye-popping orange.

“Everybody now!” The man is shout-talking joyfully. “ _You’re so vain—you probably think this song is about you—”_

He swings the ladle to point at Cahir, and everyone laughs, even Cahir.

“One of the best breakup songs of all time!” The man is saying. “We still don’t truly know who it’s about—so it’s a one-size-fits-all song—”

Geralt watches as the man does a nimble twist of his wrist to a sautee pan on a nearby burner, still singing along. There’s a small frission of noise closest to him as some of the servers notice Geralt there, whisper to each other. Ren looks guilty, digs her elbow into Cahir’s side.

“Oh, Geralt,” Cahir says—Geralt has to lip-read it, since he can’t hear over that goddamned music. But the music abruptly cuts away, and the singing man is standing there beaming at him, dripping ladle still in hand.

“Let me guess,” he says. “White hair, big scowl, looks like he knows his way around the kitchen knives. You’re Geralt Rivia!”

Geralt’s scowl gets deeper. “Who the fuck are you.”

Cahir is suddenly standing there, like a referee between them. “Geralt, we had no idea—”

“Who the fuck is he?” Geralt says, turning his glare onto Cahir.

“Can we talk in your office, please?” Cahir says, glancing around at the kitchen staff, who are now pretending that they can’t hear.

“Julian Alfred Pankratz,” the beaming man is saying. He’s blushing too, not that Geralt knows why. “But I go by Jaskier. Can I just tell you how _excited_ I am to meet you?”

Geralt assumes that’s sarcasm, because he’d like nothing better than to run this man through with one of those aforementioned kitchen knives, so he doesn’t dignify it with a response.

“What is this stranger doing in my kitchen?” he demands. “We agreed, Cahir—all hires go past _me_.”

“Your office, Geralt!” Cahir says, prodding him along nervously. Geralt stalks ahead into his small office, and then slams the door behind Cahir.

“Well?”

“You could have at least told me you were coming—”

“I’m about to walk,” Geralt growls. He’s not exaggerating. The sight of that man, in his horrible clothes, taking over Geralt’s kitchen that he’d worked so hard for, blasting his horrible music—he could wring his neck. “I’m not asking again.”

“Calm down,” Cahir says. “This is a good thing. We needed a new sous-chef.”

“We have Triss,” Geralt says. The office has windows that overlook the kitchen, and he can see that fool—Jaskier—looking back at him through the window, catching his eye and waving his ladle hopefully. Geralt frowns and turns his back.

“Yes, Triss who is seven months pregnant and is liable to go on maternity leave any day,” Cahir says. “I was thinking about you. Helping you.”

“I didn’t ask for help.”

“He came available—look, he’s one of the best. He’s been in Europe for the last three years. Everybody wanted their hands on him. I had to act fast.”

“If he’s so good, why isn’t he at his own restaurant?”

Cahir puts a placating hand on Geralt’s shoulder. “He said he wanted to work with _you_.”

Geralt shrugs his hand off. Did it not matter that Geralt had no interest in working with _him_? Geralt worked best on his own, as much as a kitchen could allow for that. Triss was always good with allowing him his space, his leadership. That was enough. He didn’t need some starstruck hanger-on blundering through his kitchen, always just over his shoulder, _talking_.

“So that’s it, then? He’s here to stay?”

Cahir claps his hands together. “I am hoping we can come to an agreement. I think you’ll find he’s actually a good asset, here. Just give him a chance.”

“Fine,” Geralt says curtly. He’s realizing there’s no use in arguing with Cahir about it—Cahir wouldn’t fire a man as soon as he hired him, especially if he wanted him so much. No, Geralt will just have to do the dirty work himself. Get this man out of his kitchen and then just work without a sous-chef until Triss inevitably came back from maternity leave in the future. It would be more work for him, but still more preferable.

“Fine?” Cahir repeats, eyes narrowed. He must realize it’s too easy.

“I’ll give it a chance,” Geralt says frostily. He reaches past Cahir and opens the office door, a clear sign to Cahir to get out. Cahir does.

Cahir’s not even been out of the office for a second when Jaskier bounds into the doorway. Geralt can see they’re nearly of the same height, although the other man is much leaner than he is, with vivid blue eyes.

“Like I was saying,” Jaskier says, as if they had been having a conversation, “it’s such a pleasure to work with you. Your hunter’s stew is legendary in my book, I have to say. And the way you bring your Polish influence to all your dishes, even the American ones!”

Geralt frowns. “My Polish influence?”

“Butter, cream, and more butter,” Jaskier laughs. “I’m Polish, too. Pankratz, you know. So I know it when I see it.”

“Are you trying to bond with me over being Polish?” Geralt says. “This is Chicago. Throw a rock—you’ll hit a Polish person.”

Geralt assumed that would be off-putting enough for now, but he assumes wrong. Jaskier just laughs again.

“Fair enough,” he says. “Listen—I have ideas for the menu. Specifically, thinking about Polish fare that’s more on the lighter side—”

Geralt reaches his limit. He stands up. “Not right now,” he says.

“—Pierogis with strawberries and pistachios, for instance, or vegan pastry rolls, foie gras dumplings, maybe—I know I’m babbling, bad habit, but I’ve just been _bursting_ with ideas ever since I found out I get to work with you, and I think there’s a niche in Chicago for Polish food that is also less simple, you know? More elevated, more modern—”

Geralt takes a step forward, and Jaskier takes an unconscious step backward, out of the office, _still_ talking. Geralt puts his hand on the doorknob. He can’t do this until Triss goes on maternity leave and back. He can’t even handle the man being on his territory for five minutes, thinking he’s doing Geralt a favor by trying to bastardize Polish food.

“Jaskier,” he interrupts.

Jaskier perks up. “Yeah?”

He doesn’t think he’ll regret this.

“Fuck off,” Geralt says, and slams the door shut.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s bitterly cold the next day, and they are running late already for school. But Ciri won’t leave until she can find her hat.

“You can wear one of mine,” Geralt says, because he has things to do today, and he’d like to get to White Wolf in time for the week’s menu tasting, just to make sure Jaskier hasn’t taken over the kitchen in the time he’s been gone.

Ciri shakes her head. “Sorry,” she says. She looks around at the piles of half-unpacked boxes lining her room. “But I really want to have my own hat.”

The thing is, Geralt could force it if he wanted to. He could glare at her, raise his voice just slightly above its normal volume. But he doesn’t want to force Ciri; she’s already having a hard enough time. New school, new people, still hardly eating. So he squats next to the nearest box and starts wordlessly pulling clothing out while Ciri sits on the bed and watches.

He finally unearths a bright pink beanie, but Ciri shakes her head.

“No? It’s a hat.”

“Not the right hat,” she says. She looks at him, waiting, as if expecting him to get angry. But now he’s on the quest. So he throws the beanie to the side and continues digging. He goes through three more boxes this way, two more of the wrong hats, when Ciri stands up on the bed.

“There it is!” she says.

She’s pointing to a patch of plaid, squashed between a few books. Geralt brings it out. It’s a red hunter’s cap, a man’s size. It must have been Coën’s.

“Oh,” he says.

Ciri smoothes it out, pulls it on. The tension seems to drain from her shoulders.

“This is the right one,” she says.

“Alright,” he says.

She’s half an hour late for school, but Geralt still thinks he could be doing worse, all things considered.

A few hours later, at White Wolf, he’s trying to hang on to that lingering feeling of calm that he’d found after Ciri had her hat. It is already slipping away.

With the menu changing so regularly, the staff comes together weekly to be informed of the new dishes, and sample them, too. Cahir likes to call it _family-style lunch_ , and it’s true that the staff seems to bond over eating together, passing dishes and gossip. Geralt likes to sit at the end of the table and do the daily crossword and, most importantly, not talk to anyone. He already knows what the food tastes like and, unless there’s a question about ingredients, there’s little reason to talk to him. That’s what he does today, slinging his leather jacket across the back of the chair and ignoring the presence of Jaskier walking into the dining room from the kitchen, wearing a neon blue sweater and, again, those horrible orange crocs.

This routine is immediately thrown out the window when Cahir announces that Jaskier’s whipped up a special for the week, a sour cucumber soup as appetizer.

“If you don’t like it, you can throw me out!” Jaskier announces gaily, as if oblivious to the thundercloud that is Geralt down the table from him, to whom the idea appeals greatly.

Geralt glares under his eyebrows as bowls are passed around the table, as Jaskier smiles and seems to bounce in place as his coworkers start to exaggeratedly moan around their spoons, exclaim how good it is. Ren throws Geralt an apologetic look as she stands up for seconds.

This is exactly what he was afraid of—Jaskier getting a toe wedged into his kitchen, changing things up without _his_ approval, even if Cahir said yes.

“I didn’t realize we were doing a special appetizer this week,” he says pointedly to Cahir. Cahir sighs, opens his mouth like he’s about to say something.

But Geralt’s only managed to draw the attention of Jaskier by speaking up.

“You don’t have a bowl,” Jaskier says. He’s got his hands planted on the table, leaning forward. “Here, let me get you some—”

“No,” Geralt says. “I’m not hungry.”

There’s a brief, nervous silence around the table before conversation picks up again.

Geralt assumes that the end of it, but then a bowl of soup is plunked down on the corner of his newspaper spread out in front of him on the table, smelling strongly of dill, onion, something else he can’t name—

Jaskier is standing at his shoulder. His eyes are bright, entreating. This close, Geralt can tell the other man’s closer to his own age than he realized, the small lines at the corners of his eyes the tiniest tell in his otherwise youthful appearance.

“Try it,” he urges. “Just a few bites. I promise you’ll like it.”

“Hm,” Geralt says. He pushes the soup an inch away off his newspaper.

Jaskier drops into the empty chair next to him, pulls it forward until their knees are nearly touching. “I got this recipe from a very old woman living next to my flat in London,” he says. It’s loud enough that everyone at the table can hear him, but Geralt knows Jaskier’s specifically talking to him. “But she was born and spent most of her life in Poland. I used to do the grocery shopping for her, because she couldn’t get around much anymore, and in return she’d have me over for dinner. The most amazing food, really. I was desperate to know the secret to her sour cucumber soup. And then—well, she was put in hospice, and I moved, and months later a letter finally found me in Germany, and it was from her! She’d dictated it to her granddaughter. And in it she told me the recipe, she bequeathed it to me as her final wish.”

“You’re pulling that out of your ass!” Tommy, one of the cooks, calls down the table.

“I most certainly am not,” Jaskier says, looking immensely delighted to be accused of lying.

“So,” Jaskier says, turning back to Geralt, “you’re not really trying _my_ appetizer here, you’re trying the delightful creation of Zofia Bartosz, dearly departed.”

Geralt glowers at him, but it’s not like he can get out of it now. Even he knows better than to decline a saintly old woman’s soup. So he leans forward and allows himself one spoonful, aware that everyone around the table is watching.

“Good?” Jaskier asks, radiant, completely unfazed by Geralt’s scowl.

It’s tangy, rich. The briny cucumbers, mellowed by the warm potatoes, the sour offset with just a pinch of sweet. Geralt swallows. “It’s fine,” he allows.

It’s actually very good. He could easily scrape the bowl clean. But he doesn’t want Jaskier to get any ideas.

“Thank you,” Jaskier says, with a wide grin. There’s just no putting him off yet. “I mean, I could sing an ode to your hunter’s stew, but I’ll take an _it’s fine_.”

Ren, on Jaskier’s other side, taps his hand to get his attention. “Hold up,” she says. “London? Germany? How many places have you lived?”

“Oh, everywhere, basically,” Jaskier says. “Even before becoming a chef. My parents are diplomats. So we moved all over, growing up. I stayed in London nearly the longest. People tell me that when I get drunk, the accent starts slipping in.”

“I’d like to hear that,” Ren says.

Cahir interrupts their conversation, calling Jaskier back to the other end of the table. Geralt tries to refocus on the crossword, but Ren leans across the empty seat Jaskier’s just vacated and says, “I like him.”

“Hm,” Geralt says.

“You have to admit he’s cute,” Ren says, still in undertone.

“Cute?” Geralt repeats flatly, and Ren laughs, probably because the word sounds so strange coming out of Geralt’s mouth.

“Engaging? Endearing? Take your pick.”

Geralt looks to the other end of the table. Jaskier is talking animatedly to Triss and Cahir, running his hand through the fringe of his hair as he does so. Geralt knows, now, how the blue of his eyes very nearly matches his sweater. He’s not going to let himself see the appeal, because if he does, the appeal might be devastating.

“Son of diplomats,” Geralt finally says. “Globetrotting since birth. Set up for success from the beginning.”

Geralt never got to do any of those things—raised by a single father in Vesemir, hardly having ever left the state, moving from kitchen to kitchen in those early days the way Jaskier must have moved from one city’s luxury to another’s. 

“Tell me how you really feel,” Ren says, raising an eyebrow.

“Silver spoon,” Geralt says. “Mouth. You get the idea.”

Ren winks and pulls Geralt’s mostly-uneaten bowl closer to herself. “If it’s _this_ soup in that silver spoon, I understand all I need to.”

Geralt twitches the newspaper back up, blocks her, Jaskier, all of them, from view.

**

Ciri insists she can stay home alone that night, so Geralt books a babysitter—a mother living a floor below—instead.

This is what it’s like when Geralt goes to work—

The radio, blaring from the kitchen even before he’s entered. It’s something by Queen—even Geralt knows _that—_ and the kitchen staff is stomping their feet, nodding along with Jaskier, their voices laugh-singing, until the radio switches off abruptly under Geralt’s hand, plunging the kitchen into silence.

“Let’s talk,” he says to Jaskier, inclining his head toward his office door. Jaskier beams, nearly stumbles over his feet in his haste to follow. Geralt makes no effort to invite him into the small space, accommodate him. Instead, he pulls out a blank piece of paper and slowly writes down the entirety of the menu for the night. He swears he can feel the warm pulse of Jaskier’s breath on the back of his neck, and he bristles, but when he turns around, Jaskier’s standing a perfectly respectable few feet away.

“Tonight’s menu,” Geralt grunts. He produces a kitchen knife from his desk, and—pinching the top of the paper between his index finger and thumb—decisively slices the paper horizontally into two, a perfect cut between two lines of writing. Jaskier’s eyes widen.

“Your half,” Geralt says, and hands it over, letting go before Jaskier’s fingers quite get a grip. Jaskier fumbles with it for a moment and then brings it up to read.

“I wouldn’t exactly call this _half_ ,” Jaskier says. “Yours is bigger than mine.”

Geralt supposes that Jaskier’s tone is joking, meant to be lighthearted, but giving Jaskier half the list would in effect be giving Jaskier half of the control of his kitchen, which is not a concession he is willing to make. He realizes he’s still holding the knife at the same moment Jaskier seems to notice, too.

“Well I’ll defer to you on that, then,” Jaskier says, giving the knife a sideways look, although Geralt doubts he could do anything to quench that laughing look in his eyes, like Geralt’s anger over this situation is a source of amusement. “I’ll take my _half_ just over here, then.”

“Given your half,” Geralt replies, “there’s no reason we would need to cross paths tonight, if you do all your work correctly.”

Jaskier’s face sombers. So maybe that’s one way to get to him—the suggestion he isn’t good at his job. “No reason at all,” Jaskier says.

Jaskier is true to his word, and yet, Geralt is annoyed. Every time he looks around, there’s Jaskier just in his line of sight, his face intense and focused over a dish, his cheeks red from the heat. Singing out an order, flirting with Ren, humming Queen. Dancing a step to the side so a waiter can pass, stirring a pot with an unnecessary flourish of his wrist. Jaskier might not be directly underfoot, but he’s still taking up too much space.

Sometime during the dinner rush, Geralt steps into the freezer to grab—something. He realizes he’s completely forgotten what he wanted. There’s one man-shaped reason for that, one who is taking up more mental energy than Geralt should really be giving him. He’s gritting his teeth in annoyance, turning to go, when the door slams open and misses his nose by about a centimeter.

“Oh!” Jaskier says, startled. “Close call.” He closes the door more gently behind him, shutting off the noise of the kitchen. He looks around the small walk-in freezer, takes a step closer, makes a considering noise as he looks closely at Geralt. “ _Here_ you are.”

“Here I am,” Geralt growls. “What?”

“What?” Jaskier says blankly.

Geralt pinches his nose and exhales. “Do you need something?”

“Leeks,” Jaskier says, and gestures to the shelf directly behind Geralt’s head. His breath makes a small cloud in the little space between them. “There they are.”

So Jaskier didn’t follow him into the freezer to have it out with him in some way, to be alone with Geralt. That thought catches on before any others have time to.

“Right behind you,” Jaskier says. There’s a smile already curling up one side of his mouth. “If you want to grab them, or—”

“Hm,” Geralt says, and stalks past him, his shoulder jostling the other man’s shoulder. But who goes around saying _here you are_ in an intimate, silky voice to a couple leeks, and not the other human person in the same enclosed space?

Geralt returns to plating his Cornish hens, snapping an order at Zed, the other line cook, to hurry it up. He doesn’t need to waste time thinking about that man—in his kitchen, or anywhere else. Jaskier’s been enough places in the world—and if Geralt had anything to do with it, he’d just as soon be moving on to another one.

When Geralt returns home that night, Ciri’s asleep, and the mother from downstairs tells him, in an apologetic voice, that she hadn’t seemed to have much of an appetite for dinner. Just a few bites from the plate put in front of her. Geralt nods, says nothing, even as his stomach clenches tighter in worry.

**

After school the next day, Ciri turns a grave look to Geralt on the ride home.

“You’ll want to leave me with that woman downstairs again,” she says glumly.

“Yes.” Geralt regards her for a moment. “You don’t like her?”

“She’s fine,” Ciri sighs. She fiddles with the button on her coat. “She’s just…”

“What?” Geralt asks, when Ciri falls silent.

“A stranger,” Ciri says in a small voice.

“You don’t know hardly anyone here,” Geralt says. He tries to make his voice gentle. “Everyone’s going to be a stranger.”

“Yeah,” Ciri says. She’s still looking down at the button of her coat.

“It’s the best option for now, Ciri,” he says. “Maybe in the future, maybe you can stay home alone. But not yet.”

“What if I came with you?” she asks in a small voice.

“To work?”

“Yeah,” Ciri breathes. “I’d stay out of the way, I promise. I wouldn’t touch anything.”

Geralt doesn’t reply right away. It’s not ideal, although he believes Ciri when she says she wouldn’t get in the way of the kitchen staff. And Cahir can kiss his ass if he tries to say a word about it.

“You know there would still be a lot of strangers around you there,” he finally says. “It wouldn’t just be me.”

Ciri looks up quickly, her eyes lighting up. “So I can come?”

“Maybe not all the time,” Geralt says. “But yes. Today, you can come.”

Ciri seems to float around the apartment in the few hours between then and when Geralt calls to her that it’s time to go. And it is nice, he thinks, to walk with her through the doors of White Wolf, watch her mouth drop open at the beautiful ambiance that is the dining room there—the sleek tables, the gold-stencilled landscape against the rich green wallpaper, the ornate chandeliers blazing overhead. And, despite her aversion to strangers, it’s nice to see Triss immediately take to her, helping her to shrug out of her jacket, complimenting her hair, without a single questioning look sent Geralt’s way.

Geralt gets Ciri set up in his office, watching as Ciri swings her backpack up onto his desk and unzip it.

“I’ll check in on you whenever I have a moment,” he says.

“I’ll just be doing my homework,” Ciri says matter-of-factly, like she’s done so in Geralt’s office a thousand times before.

“Alright,” Geralt says. “I’ll get you something to eat.”

He tries to say it as casually as possible, but doesn’t miss the way Ciri’s shoulders hunch in.

“Maybe later,” she says. “I’m not hungry yet.”

He doesn’t push it. He watches her pull out a sheet of math homework, sharpen a pencil or two, and then he turns away, back to the kitchen.

“She’s lovely,” Triss says, coming up beside him as he washes up. “I’d even say there’s a family resemblance, with the hair.”

Geralt’s hands freeze beneath the water. “He was my foster brother,” he finally says. “Not biological.”

Triss nods. “Even so,” she says. “Sometimes you can just tell, with families. Biological or not.” She’s looking away, thinking about something, and then a smile crosses her face. She waves—Jaskier has just entered the kitchen, calling out happy hellos to everyone in his path. Geralt squarely turns his back to him, foisting off any attempt to greet him.

“Anyways,” Triss continues. “You seem on edge that she’s here. Don’t be. I can tell she won’t be a problem.”

“It’s not that,” Geralt says. He finishes washing up, but stays leaned forward against the sink. “It’s—we’ll see. She’s been strange about eating. Pushes the food around on her plate more than she eats it. Don't know what she wants, and she doesn't seem to know, either. I’m hoping here, in the kitchen—”

Triss lays her hand on his arm. “Say no more,” she says conspiratorially. “This is one of the best restaurants in the state. We’ll get her fed by tonight.”

Geralt’s stomach unclenches. “Alright,” he says.

It is a good night. Cahir stays mostly out of the kitchen. Everyone is in their element, briskly turning out plates, whisking the plates away. Nights like this, Geralt feels the hours melt away. It’s almost magic, how the world can be reduced just to a pinch of salt, a sprig of parsley. The kitchen staff might be whisking furiously around him, calling instructions, moving in choregraphed bursts around each other, but Geralt only has to focus on what is right in front of him. His only job is to create as perfect of a bite as is possible, and all his training means that, more often than not, he does.

When the orders begin to slow down, Geralt realizes his promise to Ciri—he hasn’t checked in on her once. He turns to his office, with its door ajar, and sees Ciri sitting at the desk. There’s a fork in her mouth, and she’s nodding at something someone is saying to her as she chews. Geralt feels a rush of gratitude toward Triss, who must be the person standing in the office there with Ciri, hidden from view by the door.

But, as he comes closer, he realizes it’s not Triss at all.

“—for me, too, just experimenting with whatever I found in the corners of the pantry—”

Jaskier is leaning against the ajar door, making a large gesture with his hand, nearly smacking Geralt in the process. Ciri is already cramming another forkful of something into her mouth, and quickly swallows when she sees him, eager to speak around her mouthful.

“Do you want to try some?” she asks Geralt, who looks askance at the bowl of food she’s offering him.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Jaskier says, straightening up. “I heard you and Triss talking.”

“No,” Geralt says, to answer both of them. That’s about as far as he’s willing to concede, though. There's an awkward beat of silence before Jaskier steps away from the door and bows elaborately to Ciri.

“No rest for the wicked,” he says, winking at her, then steps lightly around Geralt and back into the kitchen, reknotting his apron as he goes.

Ciri drops the fork into her plate. She looks sleepy, suddenly. Probably ate too fast. “It’s just macaroni and cheese,” she tells Geralt. “But also some kind of meat. And Jaskier said he crumbled garlic bread on top.”

She pushes the plate to the side, kicks her heel against the desk. “My dad and I used to do that. We’d find all the near-expired food in the house and try to make something from it. He called it the _feast of scraps_.” She shoots him a fast glance. “Do you think that’s stupid?”

“No,” Geralt says again. There’s a faraway part of him that can’t help but feel annoyed that Ciri would eat something that Jaskier made her when she wouldn’t eat anything he had. But that is a very small part. Right now, it feels nice to see her full, contented. Like she couldn’t eat another bite.

Later, when he carries Ciri outside—her sleeping head on one shoulder, her glittery pink backpack on the other—he catches the other man’s eye across the kitchen and gives Jaskier a small nod. A thank you. That feels necessary. But he doesn’t want Jaskier to misinterpret him, either, so he turns his head away right after, ignoring whatever Jaskier's response must be. 


	3. Chapter 3

It becomes a routine, Ciri coming with him to White Wolf in the evenings. Geralt had been wary, at first, but Ciri has shown that she’s able to sit in his office and tune out the bustle of the kitchen as she does her homework. It’s comforting for Geralt to look around whenever he wants and see the top of her blonde head, tipped over a vocabulary assignment. Then, when she’s finished, there’s always a server, a busboy, a dishwasher, who might stop in the doorway and talk to her. They all seem taken with her. Ciri likes them, too, but there’s one person she likes above everyone else in the kitchen, aside from Geralt—Jaskier.

If Jaskier makes her a bowl of food, she’ll eat it. She might even ask for seconds. (Geralt would be more annoyed by this if Ciri was still being as intractable about her food options. But, after that first meal Jaskier made her, her reservations had seemed to wear away. Now she’s a bottomless pit.)

If Jaskier tells teaches her how to say something in another language—he appears to know several, from his life abroad—Ciri will be sure to repeat it to Geralt by bedtime. (“Do _you_ know how to say goodbye in Bulgarian, Geralt?”)

If Jaskier has an opinion about music, then Geralt will be sure to hear that, too—Ciri requisitioning an old iPod of his from years ago, which he’d used when he meditated, and clearing it out to listen to songs or bands that Jaskier had mentioned to her. Now, when Ciri does her homework in Geralt’s office, she’ll have headphones in, her head bobbing along slightly to whatever she’s listening to. Now, sometimes, Geralt can strain his ears a little when Jaskier steps lightly to Cir’s side and listen to her seriously describe her thoughts on Fleetwood Mac, Etta James, Lord Huron, Harry Styles. Jaskier, his head tilted to listen, nodding along encouragingly.

It’s maddening—that Jaskier can worm his way into Ciri’s life, just the way he’s wormed his way into Geralt’s kitchen. But Jaskier isn’t doing anything wrong. So Geralt finds he has to live with it.

It’s through Ciri that he learns about the goings-on with Marx, one of the servers that Geralt would have little to say about, other than that he seems a little weasel-faced. Front of house staff is hired by Cahir—Cahir’s problem, and as far as Geralt could tell, Marx did his job just fine.

Geralt’s interest is quirked when he witnesses an exchange between Marx and Jaskier in the kitchen one night, Marx scowling as Jaskier calls, “Order up for table thirteen—thirteen, Mark, order up for you!”

“It’s _Marx_ ,” the other man says, wincing as he picks up a hot plate.

“Sure thing, Mark,” Jaskier says cheerfully, and turns away before Marx can say anything else. He’s muttering some colorful invectives when he stomps past Geralt and through the swinging kitchen door.

Geralt wouldn’t have thought to ask Ciri about it—in fact, he’d all but forgotten about it— but it turns out he doesn’t have to. On the taxi home, she says, “Geralt, if you don’t like someone you work with, what do you do?”

“Oh,” Geralt says. He doesn’t answer immediately, because he’s wondering if Ciri’s picked up on the tension between himself and the new sous-chef—he’s still all prickles with Jaskier, and tries to avoid talking to him if he can help it. He’s torn between what he’d like to say about Jaskier’s unwanted presence in his kitchen versus what might be the more appropriate explanation for a child’s ears.

Ciri grows bored with waiting.

“If someone was doing something wrong that you work with, what would you do?”

“Depends on what they’re doing wrong,” he says. He waits for Ciri to come out with it.

“I left your office to get a drink of water and saw something,” Ciri says, looking down at her hands. “It was that man with the blond hair. Marx. I saw him try to touch Téa by the sink.”

Geralt takes a long breath. “Touch her?” he asks. “ _Try_ to?”

Ciri nods. “Right here,” she says, and uncomfortably pats her hip. “But she elbowed him in the stomach and walked away.”

Sounds like Téa. Geralt huffs a laugh.

“That’s… good,” Geralt says. As many serious conversations as he and Ciri have already had, he didn’t think a talk about workplace harassment would be coming up quite so soon. He prides himself on a respectful kitchen environment. “Well, I should know about it. I’ll talk to Cahir tomorrow. He’ll write him up, at the least, or fire him. That kind of behavior isn’t alright, Ciri, ever.”

Ciri nods. “That’s what Jaskier said, too.”

Geralt tries to stop his eyebrows from pulling down. “You talked to Jaskier about this, too?”

Ciri shrugs a shoulder. “He saw it happen, too. He told me not to worry, that he’d tell Cahir. Marx doesn’t like _him_ , I don’t think, because—”

Then Ciri’s off on some story that Ren had apparently told her—that Marx was a struggling musician, that he was green with envy that Jaskier had a show coming up at The Hideout. Geralt should have known Ciri would pick up on other things in the kitchen, too—like the notorious gossip mills that most kitchens tend to be. He’s only half paying attention. The more important thought is—why did it take a child to call his attention to this? Téa, perhaps, thought she’d already handled it, and Geralt is similarly satisfied that Marx probably knows better than to try with her again.

But there’s nothing to guarantee that Marx wouldn’t get similarly handsy with another employee. If not Téa, then Jaskier should have brought it to his attention. But he hadn’t—he’s planning on going over Geralt’s head, right to Cahir. He can’t help but feel anger, all over again. What is Jaskier’s plan—to make him look like he doesn’t have control over his own kitchen?

“—And it sounds like everyone is going to go,” Ciri says. “Do you think we could, too?”

“Go where?” Geralt asks, realizing he’d completely tuned out her.

“Jaskier’s show next week—it’s next Monday night, when the restaurant’s closed.” Her face is hopeful.

“Hmm,” Geralt says. “We’ll see.”

As if he would want to see Jaskier on his one day of the week away from him. As if he’d want to see him playing some amateur set at a bar somewhere. But he decides to let Ciri down easy.

**

The next time they’re all in a room together again, it’s the day after, for another of the restaurant’s family-style lunches to go over the new additions to the rotating menu. Geralt comes into White Wolf and takes his normal seat at the end of the table. Not everyone’s there, yet—he can hear Triss in the kitchen, calling some orders as she puts the finishing touches on their lunch.

Geralt’s early, so he’s more or less alone at the table. He nods as, one by one, other employees come in from the cold, red-cheeked, unwinding scarves and mittens. Jaskier’s nearly late, his chin tucked into the collar of his pea coat as Triss and some of the other servers begin to bring out dishes.

“Hi, everyone!” he calls. He takes the closest open seat to Geralt, not seeming to see the empty chair Cahir had reserved next to him. “Hi, Geralt,” he says. Geralt gives him a stiff nod.

Jaskier leans toward Geralt, as if the three people sitting between them aren’t even there, and says in a confidential tone, “I was hoping to talk to you after this? You and Cahir.” He’s wearing a cable-knitted sweater today, a deep plum color, and his hair is all ruffled from the wind.

Geralt has no choice but to nod again, but he wonders if this is about Marx. So Jaskier is not leaving him out of the conversation, then. Or he wants Geralt to be present while he details Marx’s wrongdoing, even though—Geralt notices he’s gritting his teeth, consciously tries to stop it—the server was Cahir’s hire, not his. Geralt’s more than willing to give him the boot.

“Excellent,” Jaskier beams. “And, you know, I don’t know if I’ve had a chance to tell you about my show next—”

Thankfully, he’s cut off by Triss, who’s coming from the kitchen with her arms loaded down with dishes.

“We’re going to start with the duck breast,” Triss says, quieting the table. “Ren, put that plate there. Foie gras mousse, a parsnip cashew puree—Marx, give Jaskier the dish without that. He’s allergic.” Jaskier waggles the fork in his hand at Triss, as if to say thank you for remembering. “We’ve got a sour cherry gastrique, as well, and if a customer asks—fava beans.”

There’s a murmur of appreciation from around the table. Triss has made this dish before, last fall, so Geralt waves away the dish offered to him. He knows it’s good.

Triss drops into a seat, massaging her pregnant belly. “Oof,” she says. “This baby wants me to do nothing but sit down and eat, all the time.”

“That’s the dream,” Ren calls back, laughing.

They’re on to the cauliflower carpaccio—another of Triss’s knockouts—and Cahir’s asking Geralt if he has any ideas for truffles, if he can get them for the price he’s been haggling for—

Geralt opens his mouth to reply, and is interrupted by Jaskier’s delicate cough. He turns a glare onto Jaskier—of course he’d want to step in, go off on a bright tangent about his own ideas—

Jaskier waves a hand. “Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Right,” Geralt says. He turns back to Cahir. “As I was saying—”

Jaskier coughs again, more forcefully. A few more pairs of eyes swivel back to him.

“So sorry,” he says, reaching for his linen napkin. “The old frog in the throat again. Ignore me.”

Geralt happily does so.

“What exactly is the price you’re being offered, Cahir?” he asks.

Cahir’s answer is drowned out by Jaskier’s wheezing cough. When Geralt turns his glower on him, he notices that Jaskier looks flushed, like he’s just come back from a run.

“Sorry,” Jaskier says. He lifts a hand to massage his throat. “I, um, I was given the dish _without_ the cashew puree, right?”

There’s a brief beat of silence. Triss’s mouth falls open. “Oh my god,” she says.

“Wait,” Téa says, sitting to the other side of Jaskier. “I think mine’s the plate without it.”

“What’s this?” Cahir says, trying to be heard over the rising confusion.

Jaskier stands up quickly from his chair. “It’s alright,” he says, breathing heavily. “Nobody panic!”

Somehow, even though Geralt’s three chairs away, he manages to reach Jaskier first, before he collapses all the way to the floor. He grabs his elbow, jerks him away, just as his chin is about to come in contact with the tabletop. He stumbles back a step, Jaskier in his arms, and sinks to the floor with him.

People are talking over his head, but he’s only paying attention to Jaskier, whose breath is now painfully wheezing in and out. Jaskier plucks at Geralt’s shirt, as if to get his attention, although he already has it.

“…Pen,” he manages to grate out. “My… bag…”

Geralt looks up without seeing. “Someone get his EpiPen,” he barks out. “It’s in his bag.” He sees a figure break away, the sound of Jaskier’s bag dumped onto the table.

“It’s okay, Jaskier,” he says. Jaskier’s blue, blue eyes are trained on his, a glazed look of desperation in him. “Hold on, okay?”

He holds a hand out, palm up, and the EpiPen is shoved into it.

“I didn’t know,” Marx is saying in a high voice. “I didn’t think he would _actually_ —”

“Do you know how—” Cahir starts up, somewhere nearby.

“Everyone back off,” Geralt snarls. “And someone call 911.”

The circle of people around him takes an obedient step back. It’s been a while since Geralt’s had his training for this, but he moves on instinct. Thumbs the cap off, puts his free hand down on Jaskier’s knee to hold his leg still, and swiftly jabs the EpiPen down into his thigh.

There’s a collective hiss, a sympathetic intake of breath, from the watchers around him. Jaskier winces. 

“I’ve called 911,” Triss is saying, somewhere above his head. “It’s alright, Jaskier.”

Geralt pulls the EpiPen out, puts it to the side. He massages the muscle of Jaskier’s thigh where he’d stabbed the pen through his pants.

“There now,” Geralt says. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, okay? It’ll be fine now. I promise.”

This seems instinctual too, to talk to Jaskier in this soothing voice, the words mattering not so much as the tone. Jaskier’s eyes are half-lidded, but he still hasn’t looked away from Geralt. His body is trembling now, his thigh slightly jerking underneath Geralt’s hand.

“They’re almost here,” Triss is saying.

Geralt knows what’s waiting for him—he knows what hospital is closest to White Wolf. But he says, without looking up, “I’m coming, too.”

No one argues.

**

Geralt waits at the hospital for a long, long time.

Long enough for Triss to call him—she’s apologetic, frantic, blaming her pregnancy brain for giving Jaskier the wrong dish, the cashews sending him into anaphylactic shock.

“It’s nothing you did, Triss,” he tells her. “Forget about that.”

He then asks her if she can pick up Ciri from school, bring her back to White Wolf, which she thankfully can.

Long enough to have another long phone conversation with Cahir about firing Marx.

“I’m just saying, Geralt, that’s a heavy accusation to make, purposefully giving Jaskier the wrong dish,” Cahir says. “It could have been an accident.”

“An accident? Even though Triss says she clearly told Marx several times over which dish was for Jaskier? He wanted to mess with Jaskier, and didn’t stop to think he could nearly kill him.”

“Well—”

“And why would you want to keep a server at the restaurant who could make the same error with any of our customers? Keeling over right in the middle of White Wolf?” Geralt is feeling ruthless, pacing up and down the waiting room at the hospital. He still remembers how Jaskier—who’d he never even touched, before today—had felt, the weight of his head on Geralt’s arm, his tense thigh under Geralt’s massaging hand.

“Now, Geralt—”

“Not to mention that he’s been sexually harassing the waitstaff, something Jaskier was planning on bringing up to you today anyways.”

“If that’s true—”

“It _is_ true, Cahir,” Geralt snarls. “So fire your hire, or I’ll do it myself, and it won’t be pretty.”

He hangs up. About ten minutes later, Cahir calls him back, tersely tells him that Marx has been fired, effective immediately.

Geralt’s still got excess energy running through him. It still feels like he’s waiting for something to happen, and it does. He waits long enough to hear a familiar gait approaching him. He turns around. Yennefer, in her white doctor’s coat, her hair curling down over her shoulders. Her purple eyes—Elizabeth Taylor eyes, she’s been told too often to count—fixed on him. Her blood-red lips turned in a smile.

“I thought Fringilla was joking,” she says. “My ex-boyfriend, stalking the halls again.”

Geralt knew it was more than likely that the hospital staff might recognize him—he’d dated Yenn for years, dropped off enough lunches to her—but he’d come anyway. He hadn’t even _seen_ Fringilla. Not that it mattered. She’d seen him.

“That the reason I’ve been waiting so long?” He crosses his arms. “So you could have your chance to come and look me over?”

“Be nice, Geralt,” she says. “After all, I’ve just come from checking over your…” She pauses, slyly. “Friend, is it?”

“Coworker.” Geralt grumbles, refusing to take the bait. “How is he?”

“Oh, fine,” Yennefer says. “Child’s play for me, really. Hardly even worth the hospital trip.”

Yennefer is one of the best ER doctors in the hospital, maybe even in the city. She’s seen it all, so Geralt doesn’t even think she’s bragging. Competent, smart, quick on her feet, never loses her head—it’s nearly magic, what she can do in the ER. He’s heard it from enough mouths to believe it. Still, it feels weird, to think of Jaskier and his ex having just spent time together in some unseen room of the hospital. He wonders if Yennefer even told Jaskier who she was. Probably not.

“Good,” he says. “I’m glad he’s okay.”

“And you, Geralt?” she says. The smile around her lips is gone now. “Are you okay?”

She must have heard about his brother somehow. Geralt doesn’t care to know how. Ciri was at another hospital after the car crash, but it’s possible word traveled, or she’d heard it secondhand from one of their old mutual friends, not that Geralt had much time for them anymore, or ever. Yenn was always the one who forced social situations upon him.

“I’m fine,” Geralt says. “Really.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t have to be, you know.”

“I know,” Geralt says. They stand there for a moment in silence. “Did you hear, then, about my—” He doesn’t know what to call Ciri, or the situation. “About Ciri?”

“Yes,” Yenn says. “It’s odd, isn’t it? That you not wanting to have children would tear us apart. But yet, here you are.”

“It’s occurred to me, too,” Geralt says flatly. They fall silent as a group of nurses hurry by.

“How are you?” Geralt finally asks. “Are you okay?”

“I’m always okay,” she says firmly. “You know that. I’m even seeing someone, now.”

Geralt takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says. “Good for you, I’m—”

“I would like to meet her sometime, if you think that would be alright,” Yenn says. “Ciri. I just—I want to.”

Yenn looks like she’s nearly blushing. Her blurting her feelings like that does not normally happen, so Geralt knows to tread carefully.

“If you still mean that in a couple months,” he says, “maybe—maybe Ciri will be settled enough. We could try.”

He knows this isn’t typical. Ciri never met Yenn while she and Geralt were dating, so what was the point of meeting her now? But he doesn’t think anything about the situation has ever been typical, and enough time has passed that he can see the benefit in Ciri meeting someone like Yenn. Or for Yenn to meet someone like Ciri.

“Alright then,” Yenn says. “Well, I have better things to do than force along an awkward conversation with you, Geralt. I’m sure you understand.”

“I do.” His mouth quirks.

“Then maybe we’ll talk again sometime,” she says. She checks her watch. “Your _friend_ should be able to leave soon.”

“Fine.” Yenn pivots on her heel and strides away.

She’s true to her word, though, and about twenty minutes later, Jaskier comes to find him in the waiting room. He looks pale, a bit tired, but his eyes light up upon seeing Geralt there.

“I was sure the terrifying, beautiful doctor was lying when she said I had a friend waiting here for me,” he says. “Now, you may think I just said _terrifyingly beautiful_ doctor, but I did not. The words _terrifying_ and _beautiful_ both apply here.”

Geralt can’t help but smirk a bit, there. Sounds like Yenn, especially if she walked in having a suspicion about Jaskier’s relationship to her ex. Not that Jaskier needed to know that.

“Wanted to make sure you were alright,” he grunts. He’s not sure what to say now that Jaskier’s here, and alright. Or what to do with his hands. He shoves them into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Ready to go?”

“Yes,” Jaskier says, trailing him. “Yeah. I mean, thank you, Geralt. You really didn’t have to stay.”

“It’s fine,” Geralt says uncomfortably. Outside, the sun has set.

“Off to the restaurant, then?” Jaskier says cheerfully.

“I’m off to the restaurant,” Geralt says. “You’re not. You should be going home.”

“I’m fine,” Jaskier says. “I feel really good. Amazing, really.”

“No you don’t,” Geralt says warningly.

“No, I don’t,” Jaskier says, wilting. He rubs his hands up and down his arms—his coat is back at White Wolf. “But I did want to talk to you and Cahir tonight, about—”

“Marx. We already fired him.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says, blinking. “You work fast, don’t you.”

Geralt wheels to look at him more closely. “Why didn’t you talk to me about the issues with Marx?”

Jaskier rubs his fingers together, a bit nervously, and looks away. “We haven’t… exactly… been talking,” he hedges. “I’ve been giving you space since you asked for it. But I wanted to talk to you and Cahir both about it later today, if it hadn’t been for the whole near-death experience portion of the afternoon.”

Geralt nods after a moment. He has to acknowledge that, after making it so clear he doesn’t want to work with Jaskier, that it could harm their communication about important issues. Such as this one. Geralt’s realizing that he was overthinking Jaskier’s motivations, when the other man was still being gracious enough to involve him in the meeting with Cahir. 

“That’s my fault,” Geralt says. It’s about as close to an apology as he’s willing. “If you have any other issues, talk to me. I’ll listen.”

“I will,” Jaskier says. He grins sidelong at Geralt, looking pleased. “And now, no one else in the kitchen imminently planning my demise. I think.”

Geralt gestures toward one of the taxis at the entrance, and they slide into the backseat together. Geralt leans forward to direct the driver to White Wolf, and Jaskier leans forward too, shoulder pressed against his, to provide his home address. They pull apart, leaning back into their respective ends of the back seat.

“Will you tell everyone in the kitchen I’m alright? I bet I gave them a scare,” Jaskier says.

Geralt hums a confirmation, watches as Jaskier pats his pockets, finds his phone. He tries to thumb it on, but it must be dead. Jaskier sighs and tucks it back away.

Geralt reaches for his own. “Do you need to borrow mine?” he asks. “Let anyone know you’re alright?”

Jaskier leans his head against the window, shakes his head. “Different time zones,” he says lightly. “Not worth waking anyone up for.”

Geralt isn’t sure what to say to that, so he defaults to his usual silence.

The taxi pulls up to Jaskier’s destination first, a more industrial area of Chicago. Geralt suspects Jaskier probably lives in a warehouse studio.

Jaskier must have dozed off against the window, but he rouses himself and opens the taxi door, yelping at the cold breeze. He sticks his head back into the door.

“Well, Geralt,” he says, “I’ll _cashew_ later.”

Geralt stares at him.

“Get it? Because my cashew allergy—”

“Jaskier,” he says flatly.

“I’m going, I’m going!” Jaskier says. At least he finds himself amusing. He withdraws his head and then sticks it in again, his face more serious now.

“Thank you, Geralt, really,” he says.

“Fine,” Geralt says, more curtly than he intends to be, but Jaskier’s already thanked him enough.

Jaskier doesn’t look offended, though. He waves his hand, slams the cab door, and Geralt still sees him on the curb, looking after him, as the taxi pulls away.


	4. Chapter 4

Far be it from Geralt to concede that he needs help in his kitchen that he could very well do himself. He runs through all his normal reasoning—that he is best at what he does, that he doesn’t need anyone stepping on his toes, and why have someone else potentially mess it up when Geralt could do it right the first time. Not to mention that he doesn’t want to give Cahir the satisfaction of thinking he knows what Geralt might need more than he would.

So maybe it’s because Ciri seems to like the man so much, and the rest of the kitchen staff, too. That Triss could be going on maternity leave any day now. Maybe it even has a little to do with chaos of the menu tasting, and the faith someone like Jaskier, gasping for breath in his arms at the time, could put in someone who by all outward measures seemed to despise him.

It’s better for Geralt not to dig into his own reasoning too deeply. Whatever the motive, after staying home several days at Cahir’s behest, Jaskier returns to the kitchen on Sunday—with a bemused grin as Zed clapped him hard enough on the back to send him stumbling into an oven, and Triss pulling him into a relieved hug—and, when he does, Geralt catches Jaskier’s eye and jerks his chin in the direction of his office.

Ciri’s there, doing her homework and listening to music, so she glances up with a smile for Jaskier and then ignores them when Geralt grabs a blank sheet of paper, quickly scribbles down the dishes for the night, and reaches for his knife. Jaskier seems less fazed by Geralt waving a blade around, too, until he actually takes his portion of the duties. Then he makes a show of holding his paper up to the light, squinting in the same way a cashier might look at a counterfeit twenty dollar bill.

“Why, Geralt, do my eyes deceive me, or are you giving me _more_ of your list than last time around? I’d quite say this might be split 65 to 35. Maybe even 62 to, uh—”

“Your eyes deceive you,” Geralt says flatly. He’s already regretting it.

“I appreciate the interruption, you know, because it saves me from further math. Geralt, you big softie. Who knew it only took one near-death experience to—”

“Spare me,” Geralt grumbles, and shoos Jaskier out of the office in front of him, trying to ignore the wide smile Jaskier gives him over his shoulder before he walks away to Ren, who is calling him over.

White Wolf’s kitchen is always efficient, but sometimes the kitchen just seems _on_ in ways that are hard to qualify. There are no extra ingredients, no mastery of technique that wasn’t present in the days before. Tonight is one of those nights. Geralt thinks it might have something to do with Marx being gone though—the servers definitely seem to be glad to be rid of him—and Jaskier’s easygoing command of his side of the kitchen, his serenades to the kitchen staff offset by Geralt’s crisp, concise directives, brisk _yes, chefs_ called back from every corner of the kitchen.

They’re deep in the weeds when Jaskier lightly touches Geralt’s elbow.

“Here, try,” he says. “I’d like your opinion.”

Geralt’s got a torch in hand, browning the sugar atop three ramekins of crème brulee, and he puts the finishing touches on the one nearest him before looking up.

“Sherry mushroom sauce,” Jaskier says, holding a spoon out for him.

Geralt gives him a slight grimace but wordlessly takes the spoon from Jaskier’s fingers with his free hand, swallows a quick taste.

“Needs more salt,” he says finally, after thinking about it, and hands the utensil back. He’d normally leave it at that for anyone else, like Triss, asking his opinion, so he can’t account for his grudging follow-up. Maybe it’s the fact that Jaskier’s blue gaze is still locked on him, awaiting anything else. “Otherwise… good.”

“Yes, chef,” Jaskier says, winking at him. He turns away, and then back. “Oh, and Geralt?”

“What.”

“Want to hear my opinion?” Jaskier asks, gesturing toward Geralt’s desserts. Geralt _doesn’t_ , but Jaskier continues sunnily, “To turn your torch off when you’re not using it. You’re on fire.”

Geralt glances down and, sure enough, the flame from the torch has caught on his apron. He grunts out a _fuck_ and fumbles the torch onto the counter, whips off his apron, and stomps the fire out underfoot. It’s all over in the matter of a second. When he looks around, every one else is focused singularly on their jobs, straight-faced, as if they hadn’t seen a thing. Jaskier is innocently whistling something as he whisks his sauce pan. Geralt glowers suspiciously at them all and then returns to his task.

Overall, it’s a good night in the kitchen, even if Geralt leaves feeling like he smells a little singed.

Later, when he’s brushing his teeth in the bathroom, Ciri ambushes him. She smacks a folder down on the sink, points to it.

“That’s all my homework for tomorrow,” she says. “It’s finished.”

“Good,” Geralt says. “It should be.”

Ciri gives him a wordless look—it’s odd, seeing a face he often makes on another’s face, in miniature—and smacks down a second folder.

“And that’s all my homework for Tuesday,” she says. “Also finished.”

“Alright,” he says. After a moment he puts out a hand and awkwardly pats it on her head a few times. “Well done.”

Ciri rolls her eyes. “I’m telling you this because I want to go to Jaskier’s show tomorrow,” she says. “And there’s no reason to say no, because I already have my homework done for the next day.”

Geralt leans over and spits foam into the sink, rinses out his toothbrush. “Well,” he says, “if you’ve already done all your homework for Tuesday, maybe you can spend tomorrow night doing your homework for Wednesday.”

Ciri brings out a third folder from behind her back. “I knew you’d say that,” she says. “This one’s Wednesday’s homework. I worked ahead.”

Geralt meets her eyes in the mirror. He wonders if it’s normal to get bested by seventh graders, or if Ciri is just particularly crafty. Probably the second one.

“Fine,” he says. “But just for a little bit. It’s still a school night.”

Ciri martials her smile, tries not to look too victorious. “Fine,” she says back.

She turns to go, humming a song. Geralt cocks his head as he puts his toothbrush back in the holder. It’s the same song that Jaskier was whistling in the kitchen earlier in the night.

“What song’s that?”

“Billy Joel,” she says. “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” She turns to look at him in the doorway, all innocence. “Why?”

Geralt remembers his flaming apron, Jaskier failing to suppress a grin as he pointed it out.

“Nothing,” Geralt grunts, and turns out the bathroom light.

**

Ciri is vibrating with anticipation the next day as soon as he picks her up from school. It doesn’t help that she’s already done most of the week’s homework—she has little else to do but pace and peer at the clock on the wall and tell Geralt how excited she is. It’s almost a relief when the taxi’s there—not because Geralt’s particularly excited to go to the show, but because they’re that much closer to being through with the night.

Geralt’s impression of fun is not to have his ears barraged with loud music from poor musicians, so he’s never been to The Hideout, has little idea of what to expect. His initial impression, when the cab arrives, is of a modest two-story house, looking more like someone’s home than a venue.

The inside looks more like he expected—a stage at the back, and tables crammed with people, lit overhead with strings of lights. He’s surprised by how full it is, especially since it’s a Monday night, and the music has yet to begin.

“Geralt?” a voice calls. “Ciri!”

It’s Ren. She’s at a long table with several other White Wolf employees—Tommy and Zed, Triss and her partner, Téa, even the staid old bartender, Borch. There’s a pitcher of beer on the table, half-full glasses in front of most of the.

“Come sit!” she says, gesturing them over. Somehow they manage to produce two extra chairs, crowding them close around the table. Geralt ends up seated next to Ren.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Ren says, nudging the pitcher toward Geralt. He nods thanks and pours himself some beer.

“Wasn’t expecting to see me here either,” he says drily. “Ciri had her way.”

“That explains it,” she laughs. “And here, for a moment, I thought Jaskier had actually managed to convince you.”

“Hm,” he says, taking a good long gulp. “No.”

“Come now, Geralt,” she says. She drops her voice, even though it’s unlikely anyone else can overhear them—Ciri’s charming the rest of the table with her knowledge of Greek mythology, which she’s been learning about this week, and the room is loud with noise. “Admit already that he’s grown on you.”

“Like a leech,” he says. “Or a parasite.”

He relents when Ren shakes her head despairingly.

“I like him just fine,” Geralt says. “He’s… acceptable in the kitchen.” He takes another long sip of his beer. “He could stand to flirt less.”

Ren shoots him an uncomprehending look. “Flirt?”

“With you, with everyone,” Geralt says. “Consumes a fair bit of his time.”

“Flirt,” Ren repeats.

“Yes,” Geralt says, feeling prickled. It wasn’t that novel of an observation. He’d have to be working in the kitchen blind and deaf not to notice how Jaskier crooned praises to the waitstaff, winked to the cooks, promised marriage and his undying devotion to whoever could get him an ingredient from the freezer. It was harmless flirting—extravagant and over-the-top, and nothing like what Marx had been pulling—but flirting nonetheless.

And if Geralt sometimes watches Jaskier do this out of the corner of his eye, if he remembers Jaskier's intimate "here you are" in the freezer, or him sitting close as he intently watched Geralt eat his cucumber soup, or even, more recently, the weight of Jaskier’s head on his arm, his hand plucking at Geralt’s shirt--well, it’s no one’s business but his own.

Ren shakes her head, moves to pour the dregs of the pitcher evenly between their glasses. “You want to see Jaskier flirt with someone, watch who he beelines for the moment his set’s over. _That’s_ who he’s been flirting with.”

Geralt looks around the table, wondering who it could be. Or if it’s someone from White Wolf at all—perhaps even The Hideout has its groupies for whoever performs that night.

“You’ll have to tell me,” he says. “Ciri might want to stay for the whole time, but I can’t say I feel the same.”

“No need for the long face, Geralt,” Ren says. “We’ve come to see him a few times now. You’ll surprise yourself by enjoying it, I promise.”

Geralt doesn’t have time to answer. Ren nudges his arm and nods toward the stage, where there’s sudden movement. The crowd in the room lets up a brief cheer before settling down.

The lights on the stage come on, and there’s Jaskier. He’s not as much of a fashion eyesore as usual, with slim dark jeans, a white button-up with the sleeves rolled up and the top buttons undone, revealing his collarbone. He’s carrying an instrument that Geralt doesn’t recognize, something alike a guitar.

“Hi, we’re Bard,” Jaskier says into the microphone. He doesn’t seem uncomfortable up on the stage—quite the opposite, his tone conversational, as if he were talking to a friend and not a room full of people. He gestures behind him—Geralt hadn’t even noticed a woman sitting at the drum set, a man at the keyboards. “Let’s get going, shall we? This one’s by The Human League.”

Jaskier strums an opening note on his instrument.

_Don’t you want me baby_

_Don’t you want me, oh_

Even Geralt can recognize the song. But it’s different with Jaskier singing it—it’s slow, melancholic. Jaskier’s voice tilts lower, trails off breathily into silence. And his voice—Geralt’s heard it in the kitchen, he supposes, but this is different. Earnest, and artful, and not nearly drowned out by the clatter of pots and pans. The drums and keyboard join with him, subdued, hardly noticeable over Jaskier’s more powerful vocals.

Geralt hadn’t been expecting this—the haunting quality of Jaskier’s iteration of the song, the feeling behind the words. He hadn’t expected to find Jaskier good.

The song builds until it’s just a repetition of the chorus, the crowd chanting it back to Jaskier, clapping their hands together. Jaskier is in his element, then—singing the words back to them with a full-throated joy before ending the song with an elaborate flourish of his instrument.

Geralt doesn’t recognize all the covers Jaskier’s band goes through that night, although most of the crowd seems to, mouthing the words along, sometimes getting up to dance. Geralt watches the way Jaskier expertly commands the emotions in the room, slowing songs down, pumping them with vibrant energy, until the feelings in the room seem entirely dependent on Jaskier’s lead. Jaskier might be part of a band, but it’s obvious the star is neither the drummer nor the keyboardist.

“Well, all, it’s nearly Halloween,” Jaskier says, stopping to take a quick sip from a bottle of water. “So we’ll end tonight with a song about monsters, huh? This is ‘Zombie,’ by The Cranberries.”

Geralt recognizes this one, too. Jaskier isn’t as mobile in this song, choosing instead to crowd close to the microphone, his voice ringing out powerfully before slowing the song down, an inverse of how he opened the night. Jaskier’s voice again becomes quieter, haunted. His voice breaks over the succession of “ohs” that end the song, the final syllable rising slightly, an open-ended question, and then the room falls quiet.

“Thank you,” Jaskier calls over the applause. “We’re Bard! Thank you for coming!”

Ciri turns in her seat to Geralt, her eyes wide. “He’s so _good_!” she says. She sounds star-struck.

Meanwhile, Ren is elbowing him in the side. “Thought you weren’t going to stay for the whole thing,” she hisses into his ear.

Geralt didn’t think he would be, either. He was sure he was going to disconnect, grow bored, or finally be overtaken with secondhand embarrassment for Jaskier. None of these things had happened. Now, though, it seems a good idea to leave sooner rather than later. It is still a school night, after all, and even though it’s not late, they still need to eat dinner.

Geralt is in the midst of getting to his feet when Jaskier emerges from the crowd nearby, heading for their table. Geralt assumes it is because of that—him, half-standing, while the rest of the table is still in their chairs—that Jaskier notices him first.

“Geralt!” he says. He comes to such a comic standstill that someone just behind him, not expecting the abrupt halt, runs right into his back. Jaskier turns, apologizes, and steps closer to their table. “And here I thought wild horses couldn’t drag you here.”

“Ciri’s stronger than them,” Geralt says. He feels the corner of his mouth quirk up as he says it—Ciri is shooting him a fierce look from the other side of the table. Jaskier’s gaze dips to Geralt’s lips and then follows his gaze over to Ciri.

“And you, princess, I hope you enjoyed it?”

“I _loved_ it—” Ciri begins.

This close, he can see how the neck of Jaskier’s shirt—the top two buttons unbuttoned—reveals a patch of dark chest hair. How the hair at Jaskier’s temples is slick with sweat from his energetic performance under the lights, the color high in his cheeks. Geralt doesn’t know what to do with these observations, so he chooses instead to look away into the dregs of his glass as he drains it.

“—and you, Geralt?” Jaskier’s looking at him again, as are several people along the table. “No need to be as verbose. Three words or less.”

Geralt realizes he’s still in a strange half-standing position by the table. He straightens up, coming eye to eye to Jaskier, and gestures at Ciri to put her coat and scarf on.

“I’d… come again,” he says finally.

He hadn’t realized anyone else was listening to their conversation. There’s a surprised silence, as if no one can believe Geralt’s words, and then everyone at the table reacts—throws up their hands, cheers, like Geralt’s comment was the equivalent of a Bears touchdown in the Super Bowl. Ren is giving him a smug look. Geralt sighs.

“Well, cheers to that,” Jaskier says, grinning warmly at Geralt, and then he steps close and takes the empty glass from Geralt’s hand and holds it out to Ren to fill up with more beer.

Geralt and Ciri manage to extricate themselves after a few minutes, but Geralt is still thinking about the brush of Jaskier’s fingers against his, as he took his glass, Jaskier fitting his lips to where Geralt’s had just been. Was that flirting, like Ren had said? How was that any different from how Jaskier treated everyone else at the restaurant? And why would Jaskier want to flirt with someone who had so obviously disliked him in the beginning? Geralt doesn’t know. But would Geralt want it to be flirting, anyway? It seems like it would just be the source of a whole other host of problems.

Geralt decides it wasn’t flirting.

Ciri seems happy on the taxi home, still talking about Jaskier’s performance as they enter the apartment and Geralt throws his keys noisily into the dish by the front door.

“—it’s amazing, when you think about it, that Jaskier’s so good at singing when it’s just his hobby. So he’s actually really good at _two_ things,” Ciri’s saying.

“Yes,” Geralt says absently. Leave it to Jaskier to show them all up in his seemingly effortless ability to be a good chef and a good singer. If it were even a few weeks before, Geralt would probably have been grinding his teeth at Ciri’s comment.

“What are your other hobbies?” Ciri asks. “Besides cooking at the restaurant, I mean.”

“Oh,” Geralt says. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to think of anything.

“I… go the gym,” Geralt says. “And when the weather’s nice, I take out Roach. My motorcycle.”

“Oh,” Ciri says. “But cooking’s the only hobby you’re talented at?”

Alright, maybe he is a _bit_ annoyed that Jaskier can be so talented at two things at once. Geralt can tell Ciri feels bad for him.

“What about you?” he answers instead.

“Probably drawing,” Ciri says. “And writing. I also liked to go on hikes with my dad, but you can’t really do that around here. I’m sure there’s other stuff, too.”

“That’s great, Ciri,” Geralt says. “And once the weather’s nice, maybe we can do that. Go on a hike outside the city sometime.”

Ciri smiles at him. “Yeah, maybe.” She follows him into the kitchen. “I just like going anywhere. Like going to Jaskier’s show tonight. It was nice to see my friends.”

Geralt was in the act of opening the fridge, but at Ciri’s last words, he slowly shuts it and turns around. Ciri doesn’t seem to realize—she’s sliding into one of the stools on the counter, reaching for her iPod.

“Your friends?” Geralt says. “Like Jaskier, and Ren, or Triss?”

“Yeah,” Ciri says.

“Right,” Geralt says. He comes to stand on the other side of the counter from her. “Ciri, those aren’t your friends.”

Ciri looks up, her face dropping. “They’re…not?”

Fuck. Geralt massages his forehead. “They’re not _not_ your friends,” he says, which only seems to confuse her further, but Geralt hadn’t anticipated having to have this kind of conversation with her.

“Look, Ciri, they all like you, and I’m glad you like them, but you also need friends your own age. From school. Not just people you see at my job.”

Ciri looks down at her hands. “I like coming to the restaurant.”

“I know you do,” Geralt says. “I’m not taking that away, okay? I just… I want you to have your own friends, your own life, apart from the restaurant. Does that make sense?”

Ciri nods. It’s such an abrupt departure from her happy mood when they came into the apartment, that Geralt feels horrible.

He tries to start again.

“Maybe, some of those other hobbies, we could find a way for you to be able to do them with the friends you’ve made at school. Like drawing, or writing. Or joining some club there.”

Ciri bites her lip. “I don’t have any friends at school,” she says. “It’s just… they all know each other. And I feel so different. I don’t know.”

“You don’t have any friends at school, _yet_ ,” Geralt corrects gently. “That’s alright, Ciri. You’ll find someone who likes the same things you do. There might even be times you’d rather spend time with them, doing the things you both like, than spending it in some dirty restaurant kitchen.”

Ciri smiles faintly. “Any kitchen you’re in would never be dirty,” she says.

Geralt feels his shoulders relax. “You’re right,” he says.

He moves away, pulling open the doors to the fridge, and stands in front of them. He has an idea of what might cheer Ciri up, something started first by his brother, something he can thank Jaskier for finding out. “We’ve got a little bit of everything here,” he says. “None of it necessarily goes together. What do you think—a little experiment for dinner?”

Ciri’s smile grows bigger as she comes to stand by him. “Feast of scraps?” she asks.

Geralt nods, hugging her to his side briefly. “Feast of scraps,” he says.


	5. Chapter 5

The next Monday Geralt gets off, Vesemir drops a not-so-subtle hint he’d like him and Ciri to stop by for a visit.

“If I remember right, you’ve got a day off once a week or so,” Vesemir says in the voicemail he left. “So I’ll be seeing you then.”

Ciri is surprised, but cautiously pleased, to see Vesemir again. She doesn’t know him well—not that she’d known any of them well, growing up on the opposite side of the country. But she likes the idea of seeing the cabin where her father and Geralt and their brothers were raised, likes the idea of getting out of the city. And she mentions, offhandedly, as she goes to her room to pack that this Monday is the perfect time for it.

“Jaskier’s not performing that night, anyways,” she says.

“We’re not making our schedule around Jaskier,” Geralt says. “But fine.”

The drive out to see Vesemir isn’t too long, just under two hours. It’s not ideal, since Geralt doesn’t have a car, and it’s too cold to bring the motorcycle out, so they have to take a taxi. But Ciri brings her iPod, wordlessly extends an earbud an Geralt’s direction, and they listen to her repertoire of songs together, Ciri bobbing her head unconsciously along as she looks out the window.

The cabin is more or less as he remembered it, with its long gravel drive, its roof covered in pine needles, a large stack of firewood in a misshapen tower along the porch. Vesemir must have heard the taxi coming down the driveway, because he’s standing on the front steps, waiting for them, and no coat on despite the cold.

As usual Vesemir isn’t one for pleasantries; he immediately puts Geralt to work, giving him an axe and pointing to a pile of fallen limbs he’s dragged up to the house. With Ciri, he brings her inside, telling her of his plans for installing a shelf, voice cutting off as the door falls shut behind him.

Geralt doesn’t mind it. It’s nice, the physical exertion of the axe, the way the pile steadily dwindles as he puts his back into it. The ache in his muscles, the feeling of sweat sticking to his clothes, is familiar. Countless times, countless winters, his brothers had drawn straws for who would have to do this task, no one wanting to leave the warm kitchen to go out into the dark cold to split more wood. But now it feels nostalgic, a comforting routine.

Through the lit window he can see Ciri and Vesemir. He’s holding a shelf up to the wall, and she’s standing back, tilting her head from side to side, presumably to tell him if it looks straight. He watches her mouth move, her lips quirk up in a grin. He wonders if she’s telling him about school, or the restaurant, or life with Geralt. Maybe she’s telling him about the party she was invited to on Friday night—all the girls in her class invited, for one’s birthday, and a sleepover afterward. She’d been telling everyone at the kitchen about it, blushing in delight when Ren high-fived her in delight, when Jaskier whisked her in a happy dance by the freezer. At any rate, he shouldn’t have worried about whether Ciri would feel awkward with her grandfather. After all, Geralt and Vesemir are much alike.

They’ve hung the shelf by the time Geralt comes indoors, and Ciri’s helping to sift through an old tub of Christmas decorations to put on the shelf, even though it’s still nearly two months until the holiday. Vesemir emerges from a side room, holding a stack of photos, and waves them in their direction.

“After dinner,” he tells Ciri. “I hope you don’t mind helping me pick out some pictures to frame? They’re mostly of the boys when they were younger.”

Ciri is only too happy to help.

Vesemir puts down the pictures and claps his hands together.

“Well,” he says. “You both stay out of the kitchen. I’ll make us some dinner tonight. Something Polish, something to put some meat on the bones. Hope it’s good enough for the ‘Gordon Ramsay of the Midwest,’ as the _Tribune_ was calling you the other day.”

Geralt rolls his eyes. He hadn’t heard that one yet—probably Cahir’s read the newspaper’s restaurant review, but decided against passing along that particular description to him. It’s possible, if the article came out recently, that the Gordon Ramsay comparison is addressing the raw steak skewered into the table incident from the day of his brother’s death.

But it’s just as possible that the _Tribune_ could be speaking to a variety of incidents that have happened in kitchens since he began his career as a chef, such as the time one line cook produced a chicken breast so rock-hard and dry that Geralt, in his icy annoyance, told the cook the only possible use for the chicken breast now would be to use it as their grave marker. The line cook did not return to work.

At any rate, both Geralt and Vesemir know that Geralt got all his Polish recipes from here, first—and that Vesemir was his first critic.

Instead, he and Ciri sit at the scarred kitchen table despite Vesemir’s protests that they could go watch TV, and instead watch as Vesemir moves around his small kitchen, unhurried, focused. Ciri sniffs the air.

“What’s he making?” she asks. “It smells so good.”

“ _Placki kartoflane_ ,” Geralt says. It calls to mind the hundreds of times he’s eaten this dish as a child, he and his brothers throwing elbows in an attempt to get the perfect one—crispy on the outside, pillowy soft in the middle. Heaping spoonfuls of sour cream, apple sauce. Any dish he’s ever eaten in this house has always lived twice—once in his stomach, and again in his memories. As many other cuisines as he’s tried, or recreated, Vesemir’s Polish food has always done that best.

He sees Ciri’s look of confusion.

“Potato pancakes,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ll tell you what they’re made with.”

Vesemir holds up a spoon to emphasize his point. “A Polish education,” he says. “That’s the only thing this girl still needs.”

So they begin.

**

It’s jinxed as soon as Cahir tells him, on Thursday, that there will be a special guest dining in the restaurant on Friday night.

 _Special guest_ is most probably Cahir-speak for a restaurant reviewer, potentially someone with pull. It’s possible it could even be a Michelin inspector, although they’re meant to be anonymous and—if they were ever to find out that Cahir had figured out their whereabouts somehow—would jettison their plans to dine there. Just one reason why Geralt would prefer that Cahir didn’t meddle where he wasn’t needed.

Triss and Jaskier are huddled up with him and Cahir too, having been summoned by Cahir to a corner of the empty dining room as soon as they arrived into work.

“A special guest?” Jaskier repeats, with a little jerk of his head to get the fringe out of his eyes. “Like, a celebrity?”

“All that matters,” Cahir says, “is that you’re on your A game on Friday night.”

Geralt crosses his arms. “Are you suggesting there are nights when we’re not?”

Triss coughs a laugh into her fist.

“Geralt,” Cahir sighs, and turns away to address the other two. “At any rate, I wanted to tell you all this. You’re my dream team! Together, you can do no wrong!”

Even Jaskier seems put off by the forced cheer, giving Cahir a polite, distant smile. Cahir claps him on the back, briefly taking Jaskier off-balance, jostling into Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt doesn’t move.

“Is that all?” Geralt asks.

“Yes,” Cahir responds. “Or—no. You know, Jaskier, I was thinking maybe you could whip up another special for Friday. Everyone was raving about your sour cucumber soup—”

Jaskier’s laugh interrupts him. “Oh,” he says loudly, indicating Geralt and Triss with a large flourish of his hands. “Dream team, remember? We’ll figure out the special all together.”

Geralt has to admire Jaskier’s attempt to defuse the situation, especially considering Geralt’s response the last time Jaskier had made that dish. He doesn’t have to do that—Geralt no longer thinks Jaskier’s trying to take over his kitchen, even if he still thinks Cahir has ways he subtly undermines him. But it warms him, a little, to see Jaskier has learned enough about the dynamics at play here, that if there are _sides_ at White Wolf, Jaskier has chosen _his_.

Okay, it warms him a lot.

“Oh, alright,” Cahir is saying. “That’s fine.” He was probably expecting another immediate, enthusiastic yes from Jaskier.

“We’ll let you know what we come up with,” Jaskier says airily. He turns to Triss and Geralt. “Won’t we, dream team? Triss?”

Triss puts her hands to her stomach.

“Speaking of special guests,” she says, “I think I’m having my baby.”

**

Geralt’s back at the hospital for the second time in so many weeks, then, having jumped into the back of the taxi with Triss before he had time to think about it, or before anyone else offered. Triss had tried to call her husband the whole ride there, but he must have been in a meeting, his phone going to voicemail, while Geralt wondered to himself why _he_ was the one deemed most helpful in a pregnancy crisis.

Now, he was walking down the hospital hallway for at least the third time, to get ice chips for Triss. Both he and Triss seemed aware that she actually didn’t need more ice chips. But it was something to do, something that made him feel like he was being helpful, and Triss probably the breaks in between him pacing her bedside.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were stalking me.”

He knows, before he turns, who it is.

“Fringilla out me again?”

Yenn is standing behind him, her hand on her hip. “Maybe,” she says. “Maybe not.”

He sighs and looks down. The ice chips don’t look like they’re in danger of melting anytime soon. “How are you, Yenn?”

She waves her free hand. “If I could observe, Geralt, how _very_ interesting it is for you to show up with a pregnant woman currently in labor only weeks after you came along with a long-haired former boy band member moonlighting as a coworker. You do move fast.”

“That’s Triss,” he says. “Another coworker. I’m just here for… support.”

“How’s that going?”

“It’s my third time getting ice chips,” Geralt admits grudgingly. Yenn laughs.

“Why are you here and not the restaurant?”

“I didn’t think about it,” Geralt says. “She just needed someone.”

“And the restaurant…?” Yennefer, after years together, knows all too well Geralt’s issues with having full control of the kitchen.

“Currently, in the hands of a former boy band member,” Geralt says, lips quirking up. It’s only five o’clock now, nowhere near peak time yet. He finds it easy, somehow, to imagine Jaskier wiping his hands clean on his apron, calling directions across the kitchen, cheerful and brisk. He can imagine Jaskier taking a break to make sure that Ciri, doing homework in Geralt’s office, had a meal and was alright. When Cahir first brought Jaskier in, that would have been his worst nightmare—letting Jaskier even have the kitchen for a couple hours without him. And while Geralt can admit to himself it’s still not ideal, it’s a relief, knowing the kitchen’s in capable hands while he and Triss are gone.

Yenn seems to have followed the line of his thoughts.

“And you’re alright with that?”

Geralt lifts a shoulder, drops it. “Stop by the restaurant sometime,” he says. “You’ll see we’re not suffering for it.”

Yenn’s face screws up. “I’ll tell you who’s suffering for it,” she says. “Me. That’s who’s suffering. I haven’t eaten a single meal in months that can even hold a candle to any dish of yours.” She sounds supremely put out by that.

“What can I say?” Geralt says, smirking at her. “Dating me has its perks.”

There’s the crackle of the hospital PA, and Yenn being paged. She sighs.

“Duty calls,” she says, and Geralt raises a hand as she turns to go. She turns back. “Good luck with all of… that.” She waves her hand at the cup of ice chips. He nods to her, watches her walk away.

Back in the room, Triss looks up from her phone.

“More ice chips?” she says. “My prince.”

“Ha,” Geralt says. Triss takes the cup, pats his arm.

“My husband called and said he’s on his way, should be here in about half an hour. Which is good, because the contractions are still far enough—” she winces, rides out a wave of pain—“apart.”

“That’s good,” Geralt agrees.

“So,” Triss says, “if you want to leave now to get back to White Wolf, I promise I won’t be offended. I won’t need you here to cut the umbilical cord, after all, and I’m sure there are things you’d rather be doing.”

“Hm,” Geralt says. He reaches out one-handed and grabs the chair that’s bedside, drags it closer. He figures it’s less stressful for her than him pacing back and forth. “I can wait until then.”

“You sure?” Triss says. “I figured, with Jaskier in charge—” she gives him a sideways look, and then breaks into a grin. “Oh, he _has_ gotten under your skin, hasn’t he?”

“I can just as easily leave,” Geralt points out, but there’s no heat to it.

“Look at you,” she says. “Faith in the _dream team_ after all.” She turns her head to look more closely at him. “God, I haven’t even been thinking—maternity leave starts today, huh? I might not be back again for months.” She looks a little teary-eyed, saying it. Geralt awkwardly pats her hand.

“We’ll get along,” he says. “We—we’ll miss you.”

“Thanks, Geralt,” she says softly, and they sit in silence as they wait for the next contraction, for her husband, for the baby to come.

**

The next morning, Friday, Ciri stands at the door with her backpack and a small duffel.

“Toothbrush? Toothpaste?”

“Check, check,” she says, riffling through the duffel.

“Pajamas? Um, clothes for the morning?”

“Packed them,” Ciri says, looking up from the bag.

“Do you want your, uh, stuffed horse?”

Ciri frowns. “I’m not bringing my stuffed animal to a sleepover—”

“No, of course not, no,” Geralt says quickly. “I think you have everything, then, don’t you?”

Ciri zips up the duffel. “I think so!”

Ciri’s mood is high the whole way to school. She’s excited to be invited, to celebrate with the birthday girl, to spend the night playing games and giggling and getting very little sleep. Geralt is happy for her, too. He had been worried she would not get to have this in Chicago. Still, it feels odd. Today’s the first day he won’t be picking her up from school, bringing her back to the restaurant. Tonight’s the first night she won’t spend at home, at the apartment, with him.

When they get to the school, he turns to her.

“You know my cell phone number, the restaurant’s number, if you’re sick, or anything at all?”

Ciri doesn’t roll her eyes, but it seems like a close thing.

“Yes, Geralt,” she says. She stands still and lets him drop a quick kiss into her hair. She hugs an arm around his waist, then steps back, hooking her backpack over her shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Alright,” he says. “See you tomorrow.”

At White Wolf, the mood is chatty, lighthearted. The staff is still buzzing about Triss, who—they know from a restaurant-wide groupchat photo she’d sent—had her baby late the previous night. Geralt’s phone had been buzzing on his nightstand for hours, different emojis and confetti gifs from coworkers until he’d asked Ciri how to put his phone on silent.

 _What’s her name_? Ren had asked.

 _Name her? I barely know her!_ Triss had responded.

Now, at work, Jaskier sidles up to him, wearing a shapeless maroon sweater under his apron and, unaccountably, a slight blush.

“How’s it going?” Jaskier says, fiddling with some rolls of silverware as he says it.

“…Fine,” Geralt says. Téa comes over and swats Jaskier’s hands away from the silverware, who gives her a penitent expression.

Geralt wonders what exactly it is that the other man wants. True, when he returned last night, the kitchen was deep in the weeds, and he’d wordlessly thrown himself into the tasks that were needed. Between the work, and people checking in about Triss, and then taking Ciri home as soon as the rush slowed down, he hadn’t had much time to talk to Jaskier.

By all accounts, it looked like Jaskier had taken over the reins admirably while Geralt was gone. Nothing was on fire that shouldn’t have been when he returned. So is that what Jaskier wants? Geralt’s admission that he’d done well?

It appeals to some part of Geralt that he’d rather not admit to, if Jaskier is in a position that he’d want praise from Geralt, that Geralt is in a position to give it.

“Last night—” he says.

“About the special—” Jaskier says at the same time. “Oh, sorry. What about last night?”

“What about the special?”

Jaskier shrugs. “We might be down one in the dream team, but I figured you and I can still come up with something that can wow a certain special guest.” He winks.

“Did you have something in mind?” Geralt slowly knots his apron in place, fingers moving from memory. He hadn’t put any thought into it since Triss announced she was going into labor yesterday.

“Actually,” Jaskier says. “I was thinking about something Ciri told me yesterday. She said when she went to visit her grandpa, he made her potato pancakes. That’s something notably missing from the current Polish options served here.”

Geralt crosses his arms. He’s thinking back to their first conversation.

“What?” Jaskier asks, a little nervously. “Do you not want to work out a dish with me?”

“I thought your idea was that Polish food should be more modern,” Geralt says. “More elevated. So… potato pancakes?”

“So you _were_ listening,” Jaskier says. “Yes, they’re somewhat traditional, but I was thinking I could steal some of the truffles Cahir bought—with your blessing, naturally—and pair them with a truffle sauce. Elevated, but simple. What do you think?”

Geralt thinks a second more, then nods. Jaskier’s cheeks turn a deeper pink.

“ _Excellent_ ,” he says. “You won’t regret this, I promise. My truffle sauce is—” he kisses his fingers. “Literal sous-chef's kiss.”

“Alright,” Geralt says, not knowing what else to say to that. He turns away, starts making a mental list of ingredients he needs.

It’s sometime later—minutes, hours, impossible to tell—when Ren taps him on the shoulder.

“Phone for you,” she says. He nods, taking up the phone on kitchen wall.

“Yeah?”

“Geralt?”

He turns his back to the kitchen, crowds closer. It’s Ciri’s voice.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Ciri says. Her voice wavers. “I just—can you come get me?”

“What happened? Are you hurt?”

“No,” she says. “No. I just—I don’t want to be here. Could you, please? Come get me?”

She’s okay, he reminds himself. She’s alright. His heart is still beating faster than he thought it could.

“Yeah, I—” he cranes his head for a clock. “It’s the middle of dinner. Do you need picked up now? I could come after—”

There’s a distant, fainter voice on the other side of the line. Geralt thinks it must be the birthday girl’s mother.

“She’s saying they might all be in bed by then,” Ciri says. “But, um, yeah. She says I can wait upstairs until you get here.”

He gets a mental picture of Ciri sitting alone in a dark hallway, with her backpack and her duffel, and feels a throb for her. He doesn’t want that.

He opens his mouth to say something, and feels a soft tap on his shoulder.

“Not now,” he says, without looking around.

“What?” Ciri asks.

“Nothing—“ he says, and there’s another, more assertive tap on his shoulder. “Hang on.”

He cranes around. Jaskier’s standing there.

“What?” he asks, perhaps a touch too aggressively.

Jaskier’s face is somber. “It’s Ciri, right?” Geralt nods. “Let me help. I can go get her.”

He opens his mouth to give an automatic no, then reconsiders.

“I’ve made the sauce,” Jaskier says. “And you’re needed here. I can go, Geralt.”

“And bring her right back here?”

“Yes,” Jaskier says simply.

Geralt turns back to the phone. “What if Jaskier came and got you now, would that be okay?”

Ciri’s voice is soft. “Please.”

Geralt gives Jaskier the address, and the phone number that Ciri called from, while Jaskier puts on winter gear. It’s only after he’s out the door, already in a taxi, that Geralt realizes he didn’t even say thank you.

All in all, Jaskier and Ciri should be back in an hour, maybe less. It’s less time than Geralt was gone the previous night when he was with Triss at the hospital. These are the kinds of situations he can handle on his own. He’s just grateful that Jaskier had somehow known what Geralt had needed at that moment—what Ciri needed. That Jaskier cared.

Cahir is suddenly there in front of him.

“The special for table twelve,” he says. “I’d like to take it out. _Personally_.”

The stress on the final word—this must be for the _special guest_. Cahir, of course, trying to make himself as present as possible. Geralt nods, finishes plating two plump potato pancakes. They are still slightly sizzling. With Cahir watching, he carefully drizzles Jaskier’s truffle sauce in an artful circle around the plate. Geralt might not want to show his nerves to the world, to Cahir, but he does care that this critic likes his food. It does matter to him—always does. He furnishes the top pancake with a tiny mound of sour cream, a sprig of dill. There. This special guest would have to be deader than dirt not to appreciate the combined tastes Geralt and Jaskier had provided there.

Cahir wordlessly takes the plate, disappears with it.

Another tap on his shoulder.

“Phone for you.”

Geralt’s mood sinks. He stalks to the phone, picks it up.

“One second.” He presses the extension to his office, drops the phone with a clatter back into its cradle. In the office, he shuts the door.

“Is she okay?”

Jaskier must be on his cell phone—he can hear the outdoor noises of wind, voices, cars on the street. “She’s fine,” he says. “Don’t worry, she’s fine. Look, Geralt—she says she doesn’t want to come back to the restaurant.”

Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why not?”

Jaskier’s voice drops lower, muffled, like he doesn’t want Ciri to overhear. “I think she must be embarrassed—she’s been talking up this sleepover to everyone in the kitchen all week. She says she’d rather not see anyone. If you’re alright with it, I could take her back to your apartment? Stay with her until you get back.”

“Yeah, that’s—” Geralt begins, and then a sinking sensation. He remembers the checklist he’d gone over with Ciri that morning. “She doesn’t have her spare key.”

“No?”

“Ask her,” he says grimly.

There’s a muffled exchange of voices, the sound of zippers.

“No key,” Jaskier says, in a faux-bright voice that briefly annoys Geralt before he realizes it’s for Ciri’s benefit, not his. “That’s alright. What about—now here’s a thought—what if Ciri came back to my place? Would that be alright?”

“Put Ciri on.”

“Sure, yeah,” Jaskier says, and then there’s a series of muffled noises.

“Hi,” Ciri says glumly.

“Ciri, it’s up to you. Would you rather come here, or go to Jaskier’s apartment until I can get you? There’s no wrong answer.”

“Jaskier’s apartment,” Ciri says immediately.

“You’ll be comfortable there?”

“He’ll stay with me, won’t he?”

“Of course.”

“Then yeah,” Ciri says. “That’s what I want.”

“Okay,” Geralt says. “That sounds fine. Put Jaskier on.”

Again the series of muffled noises. Geralt looks out at the kitchen, where everything still seems to running smoothly without him, at least for the time being.

“What’s the verdict?” Jaskier’s voice in his ear is warm.

“Your apartment,” Geralt says. “I—thank you. I didn’t think—”

“No, no, no apologies needed,” Jaskier says. “I’ll be happy to spend some time with my favorite princess. I’ll text you my address, alright? It’s all sorted now.”

“Okay,” Geralt says. I’ll… see you soon, then.”

“See you soon.”

He hangs up the phone. Goes back to work. He can’t help but wonder what made Ciri change her mind, why she was so desperate to leave. He hopes none of the girls bullied her. He suddenly realizes he might be the type to go and menace a group of girls for being catty toward his niece, which until today he hadn’t realized would be something he might consider doing.

There’s another thing he realizes, while he’s deep in the weeds—no sous-chef, no Triss and Jaskier. He’s capable of doing the work without them, of course, even if it’s a lot more of it. He already knew that. What he realizes is that he’d rather not. It would be nice, he thinks, amidst all the frantic bustle, to hear a hummed scrap of song.

**

There’s a text from an unknown number when he finally is able to leave for the night. It gives an address and, inexplicably, a smiley face emoji. Geralt saves it to his phone as Jaskier’s contact.

The surroundings look familiar by the time the taxi pulls up, even though it’s been several weeks since the cashew incident and subsequent hospital trip. The text told him to take the elevator to the top floor, which he does. On the way up, he hears screaming. Ciri’s screaming.

He bursts out of the elevator right into Jaskier’s apartment, only aware that he’s got his fist raised like he’s about to thrash something when Ciri and Jaskier both turn wide eyes to him.

“Everything… alright?” Jaskier asks, eyeing his raised fist.

“I heard screaming,” Geralt says. He finally puts his arm down.

“Oh,” Jaskier says. “Right. My bad. I was encouraging Ciri to give vent to her feelings in a way that my space is very conducive to.”

“Jaskier says the high ceilings are good for echoes,” Ciri pipes in, “and that he has no neighbors to hear him scream.”

Jaskier is turning a bit red again.

“Yes, that is what I said, isn’t it? Well, feel free to demonstrate.” He waves a hand. Ciri obligingly gives a high, long shriek, which echoes and pounds in Geralt’s ears for a few seconds afterward.

“Jaskier says it’s very cathartic to scream,” she tells Geralt. “And it is.”

“That’s good,” Geralt says. Jaskier’s apartment is a sprawling loft, with some kind of living area right where the elevator opens, two lumpy-looking couches. Along the wall to his left is Jaskier’s bed and night table, with that strange instrument propped against it. On his right is the kitchen, which is spacious and modern enough that he can understand the draw for Jaskier to live there. Otherwise, the space is somewhat sparse—a single door leads to what he presumes is a bathroom, exposed brick walls, two windows with wide ledges that are piled with cushions. A record player in a corner playing music almost too soft to make out.

“I hope everything at the restaurant went okay?” Jaskier is standing before his oven, stirring something, fiddling with a knob. It feels rather strange, now that Geralt’s nerves are settling down, to realize that he’s here with Ciri, like some kind of social call. Like a planned event for a Friday night.

“It did,” he says. “I… like your place.”

“Very bohemian, isn’t it?” Jaskier remarks. He turns, flipping a dish towel onto his shoulder. “I like it too.”

“Jaskier’s making us ramen for dinner,” Ciri says, mirroring Jaskier’s movement and flipping a dish towel over her own shoulder.

“Ah, yes,” Jaskier says. “We should have eaten earlier, but we got distracted by our screaming. Would you like a bowl?”

Feeling a bit at a loss, Geralt assents to a bowl. Jaskier’s made the broth himself, and he’s talking Ciri through the possible additions—would she like scallions? A dash of sesame oil, or lime? Ciri seems in a good mood, saying yes to everything. Geralt remembers why he’s here.

“Ciri, are you--?” he begins. She narrows her eyes at him.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she says, pushing a bowl filled with ramen into his stomach, which is an effective way to silence him.

They eat. Jaskier is able to keep up some friendly patter about his next performance, what songs he’d like to cover, how the loft space is a good place to practice on his lute.

“Lute?” Geralt repeats, looking up.

Jaskier gestures to his instrument. “What did you think it was?”

“Malformed guitar,” Geralt says, and Jaskier throws his head back in a laugh.

“Next time,” Ciri says, “I think we need to add a little more ginger. I think.”

Jaskier nods seriously. He was obviously testing Ciri’s taste knowledge before Geralt got here, probably asking her opinion on the broth. Geralt appreciates that he was able to keep Ciri occupied, interested.

“I think you’re right,” Jaskier says.

Their spoons make metallic sounds against the bottom. The music is still playing, very softly. Geralt realizes it’s about time for them to go.

“Geralt,” Ciri says seriously, standing up from the lumpy couch. “A word?”

Given the layout of Jaskier’s apartment, there’s not much privacy to have a conversation with just the two of them. Jaskier winks at Geralt and stands up, collecting their bowls. He turns on the water at the sink, clattering spoons into the basin.

“I think we should invite Jaskier over to dinner,” Ciri tells Geralt. “As a way of saying thank you. It’s only polite.”

“That’s what you want to talk to me about?”

“Yes,” Ciri says primly.

“What about what happened tonight?” Geralt asks. “Those girls—were they mean to you?”

Ciri looks for a moment like she’s about to refuse to talk, but then shrugs. “They weren’t mean,” she says. “They just… it didn’t feel right, with them. They were asking questions about where my mom is, where my dad is. Who you are. I felt—I felt—alone.”

“I’m sorry that happened,” Geralt says.

“I just wanted to get away from them,” Ciri says, still looking away. “And to not have to talk about it. I wanted my own room. And my stuffed horse.” She smiles at the floor. Geralt can’t help but smile at her smile.

At the sink, Jaskier is still washing up, whistling loud enough to drown out any chance of overhearing their conversation.

“Maybe those girls aren’t the right ones,” Geralt says, “but there will be other parties, other sleepovers. And they’ll go better, I promise.”

Ciri nods. “Geralt?”

“Yeah?”

“How about next Friday? To have Jaskier over?” She pins him with a beady eye. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“I know,” he says. He does know. “You want to go ask him?”

Ciri nods, skips to Jaskier’s side. Geralt watches, still sitting on the couch, as he turns off the water, wipes his wet hands on the dish towel.

“Yes, princess?”

Geralt doesn’t catch all of Ciri’s words as she talks to Jaskier animatedly. But he watches as Jaskier’s face lights up in a slow grin, and he looks over at Geralt, and he nods.

It’s been a while since there’s been anyone at the apartment but him and Ciri. Geralt stands up, stretches slowly to work out the kinks from the lumpy cushions. A whole evening with Jaskier, in his own space—once, that would have been tortuous.

Now, though. He has a menu to plan.


	6. Chapter 6

Cahir brings an armload of magazines to the next family-style lunch, one for each member of the staff. The table buzzes as they turn to the glossy two-page spread covering White Wolf, with lovingly-shot close-ups of the more popular plates, the gleaming bar.

“—Chef Geralt Rivia brings a strict, almost militant attention to detail to his dishes,” Cahir is reading aloud to the table at large. He seems happy. “The result is an exquisite meeting of flavors on the palate.” Geralt nods as some of the closer staff members turn to congratulate him.

Cahir holds up a finger, still reading aloud. “Worth noting are the contributions of Jaskier Pankratz, the new sous-chef, who brought a flair to his European conquests such as Quaglino’s and Reinstoff before his move to the States. His potato pancake and truffle sauce special nearly brought this reviewer to tears.”

“Hey!” There’s more congratulatory noise from the staff, Ren reaching over to rustle his hair affectionately. Jaskier tries to avoid her hand, saying,

“But that isn’t my dish. That was mine _and_ Geralt’s.”

Cahir shrugs. “They must have gotten it wrong. Still! What a review. I’ll be surprised if reservations don’t sell out this weekend. Not a bad word here.”

Cahir continues to read aloud the rest of the review while the staff begins to dig in for lunch. Jaskier stands up, coming over to drop into a crouch next to Geralt’s chair.

“Hm?” Geralt says, looking over as he passes a plate to his left.

“I hope you don’t think I’m taking credit,” Jaskier says.

Geralt shakes his head. “I don’t. Besides, your name belonged in there just as much as mine.”

“Thanks, Geralt,” Jaskier says, looking pleased. He tilts his head to the side, voice lowered conspiratorially. “So… is there a dress code for Friday?”

“I’ll ask Ciri and get back to you,” Geralt says.

The next day, mid-dinner rush, Geralt pauses behind Jaskier and says, “Semi-formal.”

Jaskier starts, nearly dropping his ladle. “You scared—what?”

“Ciri says semi-formal,” Geralt says, and is off before Jaskier can reply.

And the next day, as Jaskier is emerging from the freezer:

“Any allergies?”

“Aside from dying if I eat cashews?” Jaskier shoots back. “Hmm, no.”

“Good.”

And later, as Geralt is carefully plating, Jaskier dropping his elbows on the counter beside him to lean in close:

“Shall I bring anything? A bottle of wine?”

“No,” Geralt says, not looking up from his job. “All you need to do is show up.”

“After work, so—nine-thirty?”

“Nine-thirty.”

And he senses, rather than sees, Jaskier move on, calling a merry insult across the kitchen to one of the line cooks.

So it finally comes to pass that on Friday night the kitchen grows quiet, the tickets sparse, and Ciri stands up from Geralt’s office and starts shoving homework folders into her backpack. Jaskier temporarily disappears, comes back into the kitchen wearing a rose-colored beanie and a navy pea-coat, just as Geralt is pulling on his leather jacket.

“Everyone ready?”

Ciri skips in front of them, backpack bouncing against her shoulders. “I can’t _wait_ ,” she declares.

Outside, they pile into a taxi—Ciri first, and then Geralt, and then Jaskier. Geralt hadn’t considered this part of it—the part where Jaskier would be pressed up against him, shoulder to thigh, his knee knocking against Geralt’s knee whenever they turned a corner. Ciri leaned forward, across Geralt, to tell Jaskier an idea she had for his next performance at The Hideout.

“Have you ever listened to ‘Juice’ by Lizzo?” she asks. “I think that would be fun.”

Jaskier leans forward across Geralt from the other direction. “Oh, you mean like—” he begins singing, “ _It ain’t my fault that I’m out here making news, I’m the pudding in the proof, gotta blame it on the juice—”_

Ciri’s high voice joins his, and she giggles when they break off. “See? We’d all be dancing and singing along if you did.”

“Everyone? Even Geralt?”

Geralt’s been staring straight ahead through the windshield, alternating between wondering if he’s in heaven or hell.

“I’d be doing something,” he says darkly, at their anticipatory silence, and they both break out laughing. Geralt’s lips twitch up.

When they reach the apartment, Ciri flings herself up the stairs, leaving Jaskier and Geralt to follow at a more sedate pace.

“She wants to get the ingredients out,” Geralt tells him, as they start up the first flight of stairs. “She’s my sous-chef for the night.”

“If my position had to taken, there’s no one who deserves it more,” Jaskier says, fake-solemnly. At the landing, the apartment door’s still half-open (Ciri remembered her key, this time), and there’s the sound of pots and pans clattering in the kitchen.

It’s as odd as he thought it would be—hosting Jaskier, having someone else in his space when he’s not accustomed to it. Geralt doesn’t think he dislikes it, it’s just… different. Something he’s unused to.

“Nice place,” Jaskier says, doing a little wriggle in place to push his unbuttoned peacoat from his shoulders. Geralt takes it. Beneath, he’s wearing a close-fitting navy sweater with elbow patches—his take on “semi-formal,” then. “It’s… surprisingly bright?”

“You mean Ciri’s artwork,” Geralt says. “Before her, the place was…”

Jaskier fills in the silence. “Drab? Boring? Quiet? Uninviting?”

Geralt hangs up their coats. “Sounds about right.”

In the kitchen, Jaskier sidles up to help Ciri, who is struggling to remove a large wooden cutting board from the cupboard. Geralt intercepts him with a hand on his shoulder and jerks his chin to one of the stools along the counter.

“Sit.”

“I was just gonna—”

“Sit,” Geralt repeats. “We’re making this for you.”

Ciri turns, points a bread knife in a vaguely threatening way. “Don’t even lift a finger.”

Jaskier raises his hands in defeat and sits. Watches with bright, happy eyes as Geralt takes a bottle of white wine from the fridge and pours him a generous glass.

Ciri’s managed to hook up her iPod to the speakers in Geralt’s TV room, and music provides a soft backdrop as Ciri and Geralt get to work. Jaskier watches, sipping his wine, or humming along, as Geralt gently bosses Ciri around the kitchen.

“We’re making cabbage rolls,” Ciri announces to him.

“Get that pot on boil,” Geralt tells her. “And make sure to dice the onion very fine.”

“Geralt is teaching me,” Ciri says. “I wanted to learn just the way he did.”

“And how was that, Geralt?”

“Learned from Vesemir,” he says. “My foster father. All the Polish recipes come from him.”

Jaskier nods, looking a bit wistful. Geralt assumes it’s because he’d rather be helping—it’s always hard for chefs to sit on their hands.

“And he wanted to teach you?”

Geralt shrugs. “I was the only one of my brothers who showed interest. And we had to eat somehow. Latchkey kids. So it was an obvious conclusion.” He turns to look at Ciri. “Good job—water’s boiling, now. You can put the cabbage in.”

He turns from washing up at the sink, and sinks his hands into the mixing bowl Ciri’s left for home, deftly massaging the ingredients there together.

Jaskier laughs. “So, did they have any idea just how talented you were? Or was it—‘oh, Geralt’s cooking again?’”

Geralt snorts. “The second one. If it was up to them, it’d be Cheetos and Taco Bell for dinner every night.”

“And now?”

“And now they’re lucky if they can get a reservation,” Geralt says. “Or they have to wait until we all get together again. Speaking of—“ He turns to look at Ciri. “I was thinking of inviting your Uncle Eskel and Lambert up for New Year’s Eve, since we haven’t seen them in so long. Would you like that?”

Ciri nods enthusiastically, otherwise not letting her attention waver from the pot she’s draining.

Geralt returns to his task. “And you?”

Jaskier looks up from his glass of wine. “Me, what?”

“How did you get into cooking?”

This isn’t the kind of conversation Geralt normally has. At the culinary institute, at the various kitchens he’s worked for, he knew everyone was there because they liked cooking and were reasonably qualified to do it. Questions beyond that seemed irrelevant to him. But he does find he’s curious about Jaskier.

“Oh,” Jaskier says. “You know. Trial and error. Watching the cooks who worked for my family. My parents were diplomats, so they traveled more than they were home. Cooking was a way to… try to get us all around the same table, at first.”

“Did it work?” Ciri’s not watching Jaskier’s face, like Geralt is, or the question wouldn’t have needed to be asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” Jaskier says. “They thought it was good to encourage any interest I had. But no, they were still too busy, generally.”

“So what happened when you cooked for them?” Ciri asks, casting a concerned eye in his direction.

“More food for me,” Jaskier says, laughing. He leans forward and pours himself a little more wine. “Are you sure I can’t help? Even a teensy bit?”

“Not even that,” Ciri says, and returns to her task.

Jaskier pouts at not being allowed to help out, but keeps them entertained with various stories from his time abroad, all connected by only the most tangential of threads. Geralt is mostly silent, listening. Underneath the stories Jaskier tells of the games he made up to keep himself interested at home, or the bullies he mouthed off to at yet another school, he can hear some of the real story—the isolation, the attempt to hold and keep a parent’s attention, the lack of close connections he had after being shunted from place to place, school to school. And he begins to get a sense of why Jaskier might have been so drawn to Ciri in the beginning, why the two became such fast friends in the kitchen. Jaskier had known something of Ciri’s pain, too.

And it made him think, too, of Jaskier after the hospital, when he’d waved away Geralt’s offer of a phone to call anyone after that harrowing experience. He wouldn’t have thought it, at first glance—that Jaskier, so extroverted, so bright, would be more alone in the world than Geralt was.

It is late by the time they get the food onto the kitchen table, still hot from the oven. Geralt finally partakes of a glass of wine, too, as they dig in.

Jaskier is full of compliments for the chefs.

“Exquisite,” he says. “Divine. Ciri—these cabbage leaves. Perfectly rolled. This is expert-level.” Ciri blushes, happy.

“And the thyme is coming through perfectly—your touch, Geralt?”

He inclines his head. “I’m a bit heavy-handed with that.”

“No, it’s great, _great_ ,” Jaskier says, shoveling in a large forkful and making a noise that is nearly obscene. “Zofia Borkowski would approve.”

“Who’s that?” Ciri asks.

“Supposedly the old Polish woman who taught him her signature dish as a dying wish,” Geralt says slowly, “although I was under the impression her name was Zofia Bartosz.”

Jaskier freezes mid-chew, turns a brief red, and then swallows quickly. “Well,” he says, laughing nervously. “I had to make you eat sour cucumber soup somehow, didn’t I?”

“Hm,” Geralt says, which comes out more amused than disapproving.

“How on earth do you even _remember_ —” Jaskier continues, only to be diverted by the third helping that Ciri is spooning onto his plate.

By the time dinner is over—Jaskier having put away four cabbage rolls on his own—Ciri is yawning, rubbing at her eyes. It is late, especially for her. She doesn’t even put up a fight when Geralt tells her to be getting off to bed. In a matter of minutes, Ciri’s in her night dress, and emerges from the bathroom after brushing her teeth, and comes to stand by the kitchen table.

“’Night, then,” she says. “Thanks for coming over, Jaskier.”

“Thank you for the invite, princess,” he says, and smiles as she gives Geralt a quick hug and then leaves for her bedroom.

As soon as Ciri leaves, Geralt senses it. An almost palpable difference in the space, the air between him and Jaskier. They are not alone often; he might be able to count on one hand. The freezer. The taxi ride after the hospital. Jaskier’s toying with his fork, but it seems he might be aware of it, too. Geralt shifts in his seat.

“Let me do the dishes,” Jaskier says. “It’s all I can do, after the two of you had me for dinner.”

It would be easy to tell Jaskier no, and then it would be only a matter of minutes before Jaskier, too, was bundled up for the night and out of sight. Geralt finds he doesn’t want that, not quite yet. So he only nods, watches as Jaskier makes a precarious tower of their used dishes and carries it to the sink. Watches as he hunts around for their dish soap, a sponge, seemingly perfectly at ease. Watches the long, slim line of his back in that close-fit sweater.

He gets up and leans against the counter near Jaskier. “So,” he says, his voice coming out a low rumble. Well, might as well be quiet while Ciri is sleeping. “If you were to _elevate_ cabbage rolls, then?”

Jaskier rolls his eyes sideways at him. “Oh, not this again. You really do remember everything I say, don’t you?”

“Would you not agree that there are some recipes that don’t need messing with?”

Jaskier sighs, lifting his hands from the suds. “It’s not about _messing with_ , Geralt. It’s—okay, you would agree that you got into cooking because it was a way for caring for others? Loving them?”

Geralt raises an eyebrow. “Providing adequate nutrition, sure,” he says. “Keeping my brothers alive another day.”

“Yes, wanting someone to live another day could also be called _caring for their wellbeing_ ,” Jaskier says, in a patronizing tone.

“Alright, so?”

“So I’m interested in taking comfort food, food that reminds us of people and places we loved, and adding something new, too. Because what drew _me_ to cooking was finding a way to surprise and entertain the people I cooked for. Which is another way of caring.”

He takes a brief look at Geralt’s face. “So it’s like the potato pancakes and truffle sauce special we made. It’s still recognizable, just a little changed from what we’ve always known. The change isn’t meant to be bad—it’s like—it’s like when I do those song covers at The Hideout, I guess. I just want people to see something they already love in a slightly different way. Who knows, they might even like it better.” He stops, put a sudsy hand to his temple. “Whoo. Maybe I _have_ had too much to drink. Does that even make sense?”

Geralt had been attending to his words closely, surprised by the fluency of Jaskier’s thoughts when he actually asked for his opinion. He realized it was not something he’d really done until today.

“So if you were to do that with, say, cabbage rolls…” Geralt prompts after a moment.

Jaskier turns to lean a hip against the counter as well, facing Geralt. Something bright and hot and electric seems to zip between their bodies, the small space between them. “I’d have to think about it,” he says. “Why, would you eat it if I did?”

“Are you offering?”

“Geralt, you old stodgy man, if you want me to cook for you, just say so.”

“Fine. Name the time.”

“Tomorrow night?” Jaskier says promptly. “Or is that too soon for you?”

“Soon enough,” Geralt says. Their faces are close now, close enough that it’s very obvious to him when Jaskier’s eyes dip to his mouth and then back up to his eyes again. This is a bad idea, he thinks to himself. Or maybe, a very good one. He leans in closer, shifting his hips to crowd Jaskier closer to the counter, to him.

There’s a small throat-clearing behind him. He and Jaskier both turn quickly, seeing Ciri standing there in her night dress and a carefully blank face.

“Getting a glass of water,” she tells them. Geralt takes a step back, nodding tightly, and they watch as she takes a clean glass from the cupboard and holds it to the water dispenser on the fridge. The water seems to trickle in incredibly slowly. Ciri takes a long, slow drink from her glass, wipes her mouth on the back of her wrist.

“All right,” she says. “Well. Good night.”

“Good night,” Jaskier says faintly.

Geralt doesn’t know what face Jaskier is going to turn to him with, but the look is surprisingly rueful.

“I should go,” he says. He gestures to the clock over the oven. “It’s nearly midnight. I didn’t mean to keep you.”

“You didn’t keep me,” Geralt says, abruptly, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t know how to get back into that moment now—the pocket of warm air the two of them shared, their bodies close, their words about cooking belying a deeper kind of intimacy.

“But if you mean it…” Jaskier says, and trails off. “I mean, I could. I could come over tomorrow and share some food ideas with you.”

“I did,” Geralt says. “Mean it.”

“Okay, then,” Jaskier says. His shoulders relax a little—Geralt hadn’t realized Jaskier’s shoulders were tense. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. At work. And then after.”

“Okay,” Geralt echoes. “See you next… thyme.”

“Alright.”

“Thyme,” Geralt repeats, as Jaskier looks at him uncomprehendingly. “Like the ingredient. Like _cashew later_. Next _thyme_.”

Jaskier stares at him, and then suddenly sputters out a loud laugh, shaking his head. Finally he gets himself together and claps Geralt on the shoulder. “We’re gonna have to work on that,” he says.

“Fine,” Geralt says.

Jaskier looks at him a moment longer, his hand still on Geralt’s shoulder, and the humor in his face drops away, and then he surges forward, landing a kiss on the corner of Geralt’s mouth. It’s fast, too fast for Geralt to really react. Just—the sensations—Jaskier’s soft lips, his hair brushing against Geralt’s forehead, the smell of his shampoo. Just as quickly, Jaskier steps away.

“I—” he blurts, looking just as surprised by his action as Geralt is, his blue eyes wide and stunned. “I, uh, didn’t—good night.”

“Night,” Geralt echoes automatically, watching as Jaskier spins on his heel and walks from the kitchen. Feeling the brief pressure of Jaskier’s lips on his still.


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning, Saturday, Geralt wakes up and stays in bed, looking up at the ceiling. Thinking.

It’s been a while since there has been anyone—romantic in his life. Aside from Yennefer, there had been some casual hookups, the kind of people who sometimes recognized him and expected him to make breakfast in the morning as a result. Thinking of Jaskier’s lips against his own, he can admit that something—romantic had been brewing in that quarter for a while, although he’d been thinking of it, in chef’s terms, as a simmer. Something he could easily turn off at will if he felt so inclined. Something he could think that he had a handle on. Geralt’s control issues aren’t only limited to the kitchen, he knows this, although Yennefer had been able to power through his walls by sheer determination.

And Jaskier had breezed through them like they weren’t even there.

This wouldn’t necessarily present an issue if it wasn’t for Ciri. He frowns, thinking of her carefully blank face as she walked into the kitchen the night before. The truth is that he barely knows most days how to be a parent figure to her, let alone sorting out the mess of how to potentially start thinking of bringing in a second parent figure into the mix. Not that he assumes that’s what either he or Jaskier wants—it was a just kiss, after all, and barely even that—but whoever he would date would become part of Ciri’s life—and as if _dating_ hadn’t already been tiring enough—

Geralt realizes he’s glaring up at the ceiling now, and breaks off. He thinks that, at the very least, he should probably address what Ciri thinks about what she saw last night. And at least focusing on Ciri will mean he can put thinking of seeing Jaskier today in a wholly other box in his brain for now.

When he comes padding barefoot out of the bedroom, working his hair into a bun as he does, he finds that Ciri is already up, sitting on the couch watching cartoons on near-silent.

“Morning,” he says.

“Morning,” she says, briefly looking up. Her behavior seems normal enough. He comes to stand behind the couch, resting his hands on the back.

“Did you have a have a good time last night?”

“I did,” she says, eyes still on the screen. “I think we did a good job making the food.”

“I agree,” he says. He tightens his grip on the couch. “I think we might need to talk about something else from last night.”

This, at least, gets her attention. She looks up, eyes wide. “What?”

He doesn’t know why the words _Jaskier and I kissing_ seem like forcing a tongue-twister out of his mouth, but Ciri takes pity on him before he can complete the attempt. “Oh, that. I thought it was still going to be a secret.”

“A secret?”

“Everyone at the restaurant told me that it would be better to not talk about it,” she said, “and let it ‘work itself out.’” She uses air quotes for that last bit.

“Everyone at the restaurant,” Geralt grits out. He feels like the conversation is definitely getting away from him, a train he can’t stop.

Ciri laughs. “Even _I_ can tell Jaskier likes you. He blushes so much sometimes when he talks to you.”

Well. Geralt can’t fault that. He can’t control the other man’s obvious tells—and they do seem a little obvious, in retrospect. He’s still not happy it’s the subject of work gossip, let alone gossip that Ciri has overheard or participated in.

“Or that time you set yourself on fire when you were talking to him,” Ciri continues musingly.

“That’s not—” Geralt begins, and then stops, tries to recenter himself. He really should have kept up with his meditation. “Okay, so it seems like you might have already been aware about. Something. Between Jaskier and I.”

Ciri nods.

“And that’s… alright with you?”

Now Ciri’s eyebrows draw together. “Should it not be?”

Geralt comes around and sits next to her on the couch, trying to marshal his words. “I’m not saying that. To be honest, Ciri, it’s not something I’d prepared for. But you—you’re important. You’re _most_ important. If there’s anything you’re worried about, I’d want you to tell me.”

Ciri looks at him with big eyes, and then flings herself forward, arms around him. He rocks back on the couch.

“Are you--?” he begins uncertainly.

“I’m fine,” she says, leaning back. “And I like Jaskier. A lot. He’s nice and fun.”

“He is,” Geralt agrees, still a bit uncertain.

“Geralt?”

“Hm?” Here it comes, he thinks. The other shoe dropping. He’s surprised to feel a sense of dread—he hadn’t realized how much hope he had riding on this conversation.

“I forgot to tell you I was invited to a sleepover tonight,” Ciri says. “Can I go?”

This was not the tactic Geralt was expecting at all. “A sleepover?” he repeats blankly.

“Yeah. At Dara’s. He’s my new friend from art class.”

Geralt latches on to the pronoun. Now it’s making sense why Ciri “forgot,” abruptly springing it on him now. Her eyes are too wide, too innocent. And of course she’s pushing her leverage while she has it.

“I didn’t know you had a friend named Dara,” he says carefully.

“He’s really nice. We sit together at lunch now, too. And he said it was okay with his mom.”

“So Dara is your…”

“Friend,” Ciri says, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Okay,” Geralt says. “I have to, uh, think about this.”

Ciri leans forward to grab a notebook off the coffee table. “I wrote his home phone number down. In case you want to talk to his mom, or anything.”

Her voice is still too innocent. Here Geralt thought the girl was just watching cartoons, when this was obviously a carefully orchestrated ambush.

“Fine,” he says, and takes the notebook from her. “I’m just going to go… in here….”

“Alright,” Ciri says, watching with a bemused grin as Geralt returns to his bedroom and shuts the door behind him.

Once there, he sits down on the bed and lets out a long breath.

His first thought is whether his brother would allow this—he doubts his brother would care, but still. He can’t truly know. His second thought is that it would be just as easy to call Dara’s mom and talk to her about it. She obviously sees no issue with it. His third thought is that he, Geralt, really sees no issue with it either—although he wonders if he should.

The reason, Geralt knows, that he’s so worked up right now is because of the surge of heat he had felt as soon as Ciri had asked about the sleepover. The realization that it would mean he and Jaskier would be alone when the other man comes over after work tonight. The heart of the matter is that Geralt is wondering if he’s thinking with the best part of himself, the part that puts Ciri first, when his initial inclination is to unhesitatingly say yes.

He thinks he should probably ask someone about this—and not Dara’s mom, who he doesn’t know and shouldn’t be dragged into his questions about his tenuous love life. He has few friends to speak of, none that come to mind to call out of the blue about this. Triss is still on maternity leave, and doubtlessly has more important things to worry about. He doesn’t want to ask Ren and have the entire kitchen know, by the time he gets to work today, that things have a good chance of “working themselves out” tonight if Ciri is gone. And he’s not close enough to Yenn now to call her over something like this.

So that leaves Eskel, who will hide his laughter for now and tease him mercilessly later, or Lambert, who will do the same, except he’ll be laughing at him from the beginning.

He decides to call Eskel.

“Yes, yes, New Year’s Eve, I’m in,” Eskel says when he picks up. “I thought I texted you to say so.”

“It’s not that,” Geralt says. “It’s about Ciri.”

Eskel’s voice is immediately serious. “Is she okay?”

“Yes, she… she asked me if she could go to a sleepover tonight. Her friend is a boy, Dara.”

“Alright,” Eskel says. He sounds uncertain. “Are you calling me for parenting advice?”

“Kind of,” Geralt says. “I—I have a date tonight. Kind of.”

“Kind of,” Eskel says. The humor is returning to his voice. “Well… good for you.”

Geralt gets up from the bed and begins to pace. “My instinct is to let her go to the sleepover. But I wonder if that’s actually me being selfish, that I’m using it as an opportunity to put what I want first.”

“Does she not want to go to the sleepover?”

“She does, she—she seems really excited, actually. I think this could be her first real friend here.”

“Right,” Eskel says. Now he is laughing, which makes it no different from calling Lambert, after all. “So which part is the part where you’re being selfish?”

“I don’t want my judgment to be clouded just because…”

“What, Geralt? Because it lines up so perfectly that Ciri could have a nice night with a friend and you could maybe get laid while she’s gone?”

“Yes,” Geralt finally grits out. He’d be surprised if Lambert isn’t texting him to roast him mercilessly within the next ten minutes—even though they can go weeks without talking, he never misses an opportunity to lean into Geralt’s embarrassment.

“Well,” Eskel says finally, “I don’t think your judgment is being clouded. Talk to Dara’s parents, if it makes you feel better. Lay some ground rules with Ciri if she’s never been on a sleepover before. But this just sounds like good timing, if nothing else. What is your gut telling you?”

“That this would make her happy,” Geralt says.

“So trust your parenting instincts on this. Only you could make this situation seem a bigger hardship than it really is. Hardship—there’s a pun there—”

“Thank you for your help,” Geralt says stiffly, and hangs up while Eskel is still laughing.

He glances over at the door. He can still hear cartoons playing. After a moment he picks up Ciri’s notebook and calls the number she has written down there.

The talk is brief and relatively painless. Dara’s mother is warm, kind. She says Dara can’t stop talking about Ciri, about the graphic novel the two are writing and illustrating together in art class and out of it. That she’s planning on putting the two in the living room, that she has an extra sleeping bag if Ciri needs it. That Geralt can drop her off before work tonight so they could have a chance to get acquainted. That if Geralt has any further questions he shouldn’t hesitate to ask.

“That all sounds good,” Geralt says at the end of the call. “I’ll see you soon.”

When he opens the door, Ciri peeks out from over the edge of the couch. “Well?”

“Breakfast,” Geralt says. “And then get your duffel packed.”

Ciri’s smile is like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Yes, Geralt thinks, he’d made the right decision.

**

At Dara’s apartment, Geralt stands in the front hallway and talks to Dara’s mom for about ten minutes—an accountant who works in Willis Tower, and a diehard Cubs fan. She is just as warm and kind as she was over the phone. Before Geralt leaves he finds Ciri and Dara at the dining room table, where they’ve spread out pages of their graphic novel across the surface.

“If you need to call the restaurant tonight, just like last time, I’ll be there for you,” he says. Ciri nods, focused on her project, but her shoulders are relaxed. Geralt doubts she’ll call, and he feels a moment of pride, looking at the scene in front of him, the two friends discussing the illustration of a certain monster they want to introduce. He is happy Ciri found someone, just like he had said, and hoped, she would.

“I’m going to go now,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” she says, looking up to smile at him.

“Nice meeting you,” Dara says, looking up at the same time.

He stops to say goodbye to Dara’s mom, and then closes his leather jacket against the wind and bundles himself into the taxi for White Wolf.

Well. Now that that’s done, the box in his brain about him, and Jaskier, and tonight, reminds him of its presence. Geralt tries nonetheless not to think too much about it. The fact is, Jaskier had seemed just as surprised about their kiss last night. Geralt can’t say if it’s something Jaskier would have the courage—or desire—to repeat. For all he knows, he’s just had these careful conversations with Ciri and Eskel only to find that Jaskier had had a drink too many last night and was only interested in food and talk tonight.

His chest grows tight at that, but then loosens. Food and talk with Jaskier tonight still sounds a mile better than what he’d have otherwise—a silent apartment, Ciri gone at the sleepover. He thinks Jaskier will make a good dinner companion, just like he was the night before.

At the restaurant, he hadn’t been sure what to expect, but Jaskier seems to act relatively normal toward him—and, for Jaskier, the “normal” very much does tend to relative. Geralt does notice that Jaskier doesn’t seem to quite be looking him in the eye. But it doesn’t impede their ability to talk to each other, or the flow of the kitchen when it gets busy. 

Maybe, Geralt thinks, this is sign enough. Jaskier easing them back into normalcy. He decides to lower any hopes for the night—just food, he reminds himself, and talk.

Later, when the servers are performing closing duties, Jaskier buttons up his pea coat and comes to stand by Geralt. He has a large paper bag that’s filled with opaque Tupperware—Geralt can’t see what’s inside.

“Ready?” Geralt grunts, and Jaskier nods. Geralt is very aware that the kitchen must be aware that they’re leaving together for the second straight night, this time without Ciri, but wouldn’t it seem more incriminating if they’d carefully timed their exits apart? Jaskier calls out a goodbye to the kitchen at large and they leave.

In the taxi, Jaskier turns toward him. In the dark of the taxi, his eyes meet Geralt’s for the first time all day. “Is Ciri okay?”

Geralt nods. “At a sleepover. I think it’ll go better the last one.”

“Good for her,” Jaskier says.

“I didn’t think to tell you,” Geralt says, suddenly realizing. “You must have prepared food for her, too.”

Jaskier waves a hand. “Not a problem. I have a feeling that’ll all end up in your stomach, anyways.” He winks. “Because you’ll love it so much, I mean.”

“Hm,” Grealt says. “Confident, are you?”

“Just finding that out?” Jaskier returns, as the taxi pulls up in front of Geralt’s building.

Inside the apartment, Geralt takes a cue from Ciri, the night before, and plays some soft music through the speakers. Jaskier instructs him to sit on the couch, and stay there, while he gets the food ready. So Geralt sits in the room by himself, uncertainly sunk into the couch, while Jaskier chatters at him through the kitchen doorway, plates and pans crashing around like it’s his own kitchen.

“My confession that I need to make to you is that you’re not having cabbage rolls tonight,” Jaskier calls.

“Why? Too hard to elevate, after all?”

“Ooh, _touché_ , Geralt—but in all honesty, Geralt, I changed my mind. I wanted to take your taste buds on a _journey_ instead.”

“Really,” Geralt says. “Where are they going.”

“You’ll see,” Jaskier says, emerging from the kitchen. “Or, rather, you won’t see, but you get my drift.”

He holds out his hands, revealing a strip of black silk. Geralt’s mouth goes a bit dry.

“Is this normally a part of your dinners?” Geralt finally asks.

“Well, no,” Jaskier says, stepping closer. “But as I was planning for this, I remembered an interview of yours I’d read a while ago, when I got hired. You’re a supertaster, aren’t you?”

Geralt nods, still eyeing the strip of silk.

“So I thought to myself, if we’re going to indulge your extrasensory gifts tonight—” the silk drops lightly over his eyes. “—And what with you being such a curmudgeon about _bastardizing Polish food_ , I thought this might be the best way to play it.”

Jaskier’s still for a moment; Geralt realizes he’s waiting for permission. After a moment he jerks his head, an assent, and Jaskier’s fingers nimbly tie the silk tight behind his head. All Geralt can see is black.

“And how’s that?” Geralt asks, voice dropping lower. _Just food and talk_ , he reminds himself.

“Tonight, Geralt, is all about what you can taste. No distractions.” 

He hears Jaskier’s footsteps retreat, and then return. The cushion dips as Jaskier sits down next to him.

“Something to take the edge off?” Jaskier’s voice is teasing, but—is it the blindfold that helps Geralt notice that?—seems to have an edge, too, of nervousness. Geralt nods.

Geralt feels Jaskier push something into his hand—a glass. He lifts it a bit gingerly to his lips, takes a sip. The familiar burn of alcohol, although the ingredients—a little less so. He makes a considering noise, takes another sip.

“What do you taste?” Jaskier prompts. For a moment, Geralt thinks of the oddity of this—Jaskier, watching him eat blindfolded, sitting close by. But Jaskier’s question is at hand, and Geralt feel the familiar, competitive urge to be able to exceed expectations.

“Vodka,” he says after a minute. “I taste apples… honey. Some kind of martini.”

“Good,” Jaskier says warmly. “All Polish ingredients, too. Zubrowka bison grass vodka, honey liqueur, clear apple juice. Do you like it?”

Geralt tips his head back, finishes the glass. He holds it out, feels Jaskier nimbly pluck it from his fingers.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jaskier says. “I imagine that Borch, at the restaurant, would have a field day mixing up drinks like this for the clientele, don’t you think?”

Oh, Geralt thinks. So this is part of it, too. Jaskier trying to show the innovations he could bring to White Wolf, if Geralt would let him.

There was a time, not so long ago, where Geralt would, well—

Rather give his sight than let Jaskier change a single thing about his restaurant.

“Are you just planning on getting me drunk?” Geralt asks. Jaskier huffs out a laugh.

“Alright, bossy. Here’s your appetizer.”

What follows is the most bizarre eating experience Geralt has ever had. He stays blindfolded, Jaskier carefully prodding forks into his grasp. He only tries a few bites of any certain dish. Whatever he eats, Jaskier asks him what he tastes, and Geralt, rolling the flavors over his tongue, answers him.

And the food. It’s good. Very good. Geralt imagines that while he was sleeping, staring at the ceiling, and pacing his bedroom this morning, wondering what to decide with Ciri, Jaskier had been cooking all day. _Placki_ with sauteed chicken livers and dried cherries, steak tartare with sweet, spicy lovage oil, a perfect bite of venison with a puree of—it takes Geralt a moment, a few more bites—roasted pumpkin and thyme.

“Got room for dessert?” Jaskier asks. Geralt realizes the music had stopped at some point, that now the only sound in the room is Jaskier’s voice, his breathing. He can feel Jasker’s knee digging into his thigh from where he’s sitting close by.

Another fork carefully pushed between his fingers. He takes a bite, tries to suppress a moan, at the surprise of sweetness that overtakes his tongue.

“Strawberry pierogi, lightly fried,” Jaskier says. “And then, on top, drizzled with honey, and finished off with crushed—”

“Pistachios,” Geralt says. He swallows the rest of his bite.

“Well?” Jaskier’s voice is pitched low, intimate, to his ear. Geralt turns to sightlessly face Jaskier head-on. “Have I convinced you?”

“Depends,” Geralt says. He feels Jaskier start to take in a sharp breath, and continues, “Would you cook more for me if I still needed convincing?”

“Oh,” Jaskier says. “Oh I see. A way to a man’s heart is truly through his stomach, hm?” Geralt feels the couch shift, and then the cool tines of the fork against his lower lip. “Here. Final bite.”

Geralt lets Jaskier slide the fork into his mouth. Savors the sweet combination of honey, strawberries, the salt of the pistachios. He feels like he could sleep right here, on the couch, feels the heavy, drowsy feeling that comes with a good meal. Just as he’s thinking it, he feels the warm press of skin against the outer edge of his lip—Jaskier’s thumb, he realizes.

“Had a touch of honey, there,” Jaskier explains, his voice still low. Beneath the blindfold, Geralt hears the soft sound of Jaskier’s lips parting, and knows Jaskier’s licked the honey from his thumb.

Suddenly, Geralt does not feel sleepy. He feels the exact opposite of sleepy. He can’t tell, blind as he is, if his level of _awakeness_ is apparent to Jaskier, and before he can decide what to do about that, he feels Jaskier’s hand drop to his thigh, purposeful.

“Something to take the edge off?” Jaskier asks, like he did at the beginning. Geralt can _hear_ the smirk in his voice. 

“Fuck,” he says roughly, “yes.”

Jaskier’s hand drops to his belt. Then there’s the sudden dip and release of the cushions, and a sound closer to his feet—oh. Jaskier’s kneeling on the floor now, pushing his thighs apart, and his hands insistent on Geralt’s belt again.

Geralt’s cock is hardly free from his jeans before Jaskier’s opening his lips over the head of it. Geralt can feel the hot press of his tongue, of the back of his throat as Jaskier sinks down. He groans, settling his thighs wider. It’s obscene, decadent—how, without his sight, he can only hear the wet sounds of Jaskier working on him, the harsh heave of his breath. And feel, too, the thick pleasure, slow as honey, building in the base of his spine.

Jaskier nudges a hand into his jeans, his fingers rubbing purposely against his balls, at the space just behind. At that, Geralt feels his body start to wind up, like a spring, in response. He won’t be lasting much longer.

“Jas, Jaskier,” he grates out. His hands reach out, find silky hair. Jaskier moans, freezes, as Geralt’s fingers find purchase. Geralt grips tighter, uses his handful to urge Jaskier’s head up and back down again, carefully guiding his mouth over his length. Jaskier is panting now, his free hand locking down on Geralt’s knee, as if to ground himself. Geralt’s hips tilt forward, and he pulls Jaskier forward that last little bit, and he comes with a gasp, Jaskier’s lips and tongue and mouth heavenly around him all the while. After a moment, Jaskier pulls away, and Geralt feels the weight of his head leaned against his thigh.

Geralt’s heart finally feels like it’s not going to jackrabbit out of his ears at any moment. He decides, with a sudden rush of clarity, that he’s done with that fucking blindfold. He wants to see Jaskier—he wants to repay the favor—he wants. With a noise of irritation he reaches behind his head and unknots the strip of silk with a jerk. It flutters away. He blinks at the sudden onslaught of light, and then he sees a very pleasant sight—Jaskier, with his head still leaned on Geralt’s thigh: his hair in disarray, his bruised-red mouth, the sideways smile he’s directing up at Geralt.

“Come here,” Geralt demands, and abruptly stands up and kicks off his jeans, getting them out of the way. Jaskier stumbles up, is barely on his feet before Geralt hooks an arm around his waist, lifts him up.

“Whoa—Geralt—” Jaskier says, and then dissolves into laughter as Geralt carries him from the room, down the hallway, and dumps into onto his bed.

It’s darker in here, but not so dark that he can’t see Jaskier, trying to make quick work out of getting out of his own clothes, pulling his sweater up over his head, revealing pale skin, dark hair. Geralt makes a considering noise, leans forward to suck over his ribs.

“Ah, hey now, I’m ticklish,” Jaskier says, squirming, but still laughing. He stops laughing when Geralt pushes his pants down. By the time Geralt’s shouldered between his thighs and got his mouth on Jaskier’s cock, actually, Jaskier’s not making much coherent noise at all. When Jaskier tenses up, close, Geralt gets up on his knees and strokes him off, his fist tight around Jaskier’s cock until he spills. It’s a very satisfying sight, he thinks, seeing Jaskier trembling on his bed, oversensitive, as he jerks him through the last of it.

Afterward, he moves up the bed to take the pillow next to Jaskier. Not that he’s a man of many words, but Jaskier _is_ , and he’s realizing not many words have been exchanged for the latest part of their night.

“Everything… alright?” he asks, a bit hesitantly.

Jaskier turns on his side, facing him, and props his head up on his hand.

“I think,” he says, in a considering tone, “that something they say in the restaurant biz applies here.”

Geralt, sensing a joke he doesn’t want to hear, narrows his eyes. “What do they say in the restaurant biz?”

“I hope you enjoyed your meal, please come again?” Jaskier has enough time to raise his eyebrows, smiling hopefully, before Geralt’s pillow all but smothers him in the face.

After a moment, Geralt takes the pillow away. Jaskier looks up at him, a little breathless.

“Stay the night?” Geralt asks. Jaskier doesn’t even think about it, just nods, slides closer.

“When does Ciri get home?” he asks, his hands idle along Geralt’s chest. Geralt takes in a breath, lets it out, feels Jaskier’s hands rise and fall on his chest along with it. It is already strange, to think that he started out the night with hope for nothing more than a little food, some talk. To think he could keep their company with each other at a simmer. To think he might have _wanted_ it that way.

“I’ll go get her sometime tomorrow morning,” he says.

“Well. You know what that means.”

“Hm?”

Jaskier’s teeth are white in the dark, a suggestive edge. He leans over, presses a kiss to Geralt’s lips. This one is not quick, ungainly, barely felt, like the night before. Jaskier’s tongue strokes in, and Geralt pulls him a little closer, and they kiss until Jaskier raises his head, bringing an inch of space between their mouths.

“Breakfast,” Jaskier says.


	8. Chapter 8

When Geralt wakes, it’s with a feeling of contentment, ease, that he hasn’t felt in a long while. Even before he opens his eyes, he’s cataloguing the feeling of the sheets against his bare skin, the distant mumble of the radio on somewhere in his apartment, the squeak of the faucet in the bathroom.

It takes him a minute to remember that it’s not Ciri in his bathroom, that she’s not even here. He finally opens his eyes, rolls up onto his elbows. Jaskier’s standing in the bathroom doorway that’s attached to Geralt’s bedroom, wearing nothing but his briefs.

“Hi,” Jaskier says, a smile playing around his mouth. He leans on the doorframe. “Now there’s a sight you don’t see every day.”

Geralt quirks an eyebrow. “What? Me, sleeping?”

“Your bare legs, actually,” Jaskier says. “They give off a particularly ghostly-white sheen.”

“Hm,” Geralt says. He sits up all the way, turns the clock on the nightstand to face him. It’s already nearly nine, which is a surprise. He never sleeps in. “Fuck,” he mumbles.

“What?”

“It’s just later than I expected. I’ll have to go get Ciri soon.” He feels a bit annoyed, some of his contentment slinking away—not at having to pick up Ciri, but at having squandered his alone time with Jaskier by sleeping in without meaning to. Jaskier’s still here, which is a good sign, he thinks. But now there’s no time to make breakfast together, to do… anything together. He looks over Jaskier’s slim build, the surprisingly muscled arms, the surprisingly thick hair on his chest. He had hoped for more opportunities, warding against the possibility of their relationship returning to the simmer it had been as soon as their time alone together ends.

Jaskier steps back into the bathroom for a moment, returns with Geralt’s toothbrush in hand, dolloped with toothpaste.

“Open wide,” he says, and winks.

Geralt leans away. “Tell me you didn’t brush your teeth with my toothbrush.”

“I didn’t brush my teeth with your toothbrush,” Jaskier parrots dutifully. When Geralt continues to look at him, Jaskier’s face becomes a look of injured innocence. “What! I didn’t. I used my finger, like this.” He mimes brushing his index finger along his teeth.

“There is a spare toothbrush,” Geralt says, wondering why this, of all things, makes him feel so awkward. “In the closet. You can use it. Next time.”

“And so I will,” Jaskier says, and holds out the toothbrush authoritatively toward Geralt again. Geralt tries to grab it, but instead Jaskier manages to jam it through his lips. And isn’t that just like Jaskier, to be completely oblivious that the moment had the potential to be awkward, at all. Geralt rolls his eyes as Jaskier does a quick but thorough job of it, brushing over and behind Geralt’s teeth, before pulling the toothbrush away and giving him a brief kiss.

“Squeaky clean,” he declares.

Geralt stands up to go spit out his mouthful of foam, and in doing so, the sheets slide away. There is something gratifying in the way Jaskier’s mouth drops open a little at the sight of him, his words stoppered for once. Geralt walks past him into the bathroom. A minute later, he returns, now wearing his bathrobe. Jaskier’s already got his mouth open again, this time like he’s going to make some cheeky comment about the robe, so Geralt steps forward and hauls Jaskier to him and they kiss for a while. Jaskier tastes like mint, and his jaw is just slightly rough with stubble. Geralt can’t help but make a pleased, contented noise as Jaskier draws away.

“Well,” Jaskier says, “if time’s short, how about I whip up some pancakes. Nice and simple. That way I can be on my way, and you can pick up Ciri.”

Geralt follows him down the hall to the kitchen.

“How come you’re the one making the pancakes?” he asks, seating himself at the counter. It’s not like he really minds, but by rights he should be the one making breakfast in his own kitchen.

“Pretty sure, based on your reaction to the food last night, we established I’m the superior chef.” He pauses, hands on his hips, as he surveys the kitchen cabinets for some utensil he’s looking for. “Maybe you can reclaim the title if _your_ food gets me hard sometime.”

This is the kind of Jaskier-talk that would have sent Geralt into a very foul mood, not even all that long ago. Now he just cocks his head, giving Jaskier a slow, lazy grin.

“Is that all?” he asks lowly.

Jaskier grabs a mixing bowl, points an accusing finger in Geralt’s direction. “No, none of that! No seducing the chef when he’s making breakfast. It’s undignified.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Geralt points out.

“You’re smiling at me, and that’s enough,” Jaskier says. He runs a hand through his hair, still wildly in disorder from the night before. His face brightens as he spies an old apron of Geralt’s hanging inside the pantry door, and he ties it on. “It is, I have to say, _very_ unfortunate you have to pick up Ciri soon.”

Geralt shrugs, affecting a lack of concern he doesn’t feel. “So stay.”

“I wish I could,” Jaskier says ruefully. He’s moved over to stand at the fridge now, pushing Geralt’s groceries around. “I actually have practice between now and work later. Need to shower and change, too.”

“Practice?” Geralt repeats, and then remembers. “Oh. Are you playing again soon?”

“Tomorrow night, actually,” Jaskier says. He bumps the fridge door shut with his hip. “It worked out that way, since Mondays are always our day off.”

Geralt hums a noise of agreement. He’s preoccupied watching Jaskier make the pancakes on one level—Jaskier’s quick, deft hands, his ease in Geralt’s kitchen, wearing nothing but his briefs and Geralt’s apron. On another level, he’s thinking back to the last time he took Ciri to The Hideout—the only place he and Ciri have really gone together, in Chicago, aside from White Wolf and school and their own apartment. To think Geralt is the lifelong Chicagoan here, and Jaskier’s the one who showed him and Ciri a part of the city he’d never seen before, given them an experience they wouldn’t have had otherwise. 

“—many pancakes do you want?”

“What?” Geralt refocuses. “Oh. Three?”

Jaskier sketches a bow and slides three pancakes onto a plate, pushing them across the counter to Geralt along with the crock of butter and the syrup and a bowl of neatly diced fruit. With the sunlight coming in through the window, and Jaskier leaning on his elbows on the other side of the kitchen island, dishtowel slung over his shoulder, it makes for a very pretty picture.

Jaskier waits until Geralt’s taken a bite.

“Well?”

Geralt swallows. Jaskier’s always just wanted someone to cook for, he knows. Someone who will stay. “I could get used to this,” he admits.

Jaskier looks shyly away and back, his first betrayal of nerves all morning. “I could, too,” he says.

*

Ciri is talking when she slides into the taxi in front of Dara’s and she’s still talking breathlessly when they return to the apartment. She and Dara had worked out a whole chapter for their graphic novel, and made cookies with Dara’s mom, and stayed up late watching a scary show on Netflix that Geralt had never heard of, and—

“It’s good there’s no school tomorrow, because I feel like I’ll need to sleep in _a lot_ ,” Ciri says, dumping her duffel bag to the floor.

“No school tomorrow?” Geralt repeats. He wracks his brain—it’s not Thanksgiving break yet, it’s still a couple weeks away. “What do you mean?”

Ciri gives him a very unimpressed look. “I told you this already,” she says. “It’s a teachers’ work day! Remember? They sent home that paper about it.” She points past him, to the fridge, where there is a memo from the school held in place by a magnet. Geralt had completely forgotten.

“Oh, right,” he says. He’s still a bit slow on the upkeep, but---Ciri’s off. And so is he. And so, he realizes, is Jaskier. An idea begins to dawn.

*

Later, at White Wolf, when he sees Jaskier duck into the freezer, he follows him in. He just wants to talk, but Jaskier has other ideas when he realizes he’s not alone—he immediately hooks a foot around Geralt’s ankle to pull him closer, mock-frowns.

“No seducing the chef at work, either,” he chides, as if he’s not the one instigating this, leaning forward to press a kiss to Geralt’s lips.

Geralt pushes him against the shelves, kisses him back. He’s never done something like that at work before, but the appeal is immediate, with Jaskier warm and eager against him, the ease with which Jaskier sinks into this, as if they make out in freezers every day. There’s a shoe-squeak outside—a server hustling past—and he finally leans back, remembers his purpose.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks. “Besides your show, I mean.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says. He visibly seems to be trying to marshal his thoughts back into order. “Nothing, I don’t think. Why?”

“Ciri has the day off,” Geralt says. “I thought it might be nice to—show her around. Show her Chicago.”

“She’ll love that,” Jaskier says immediately. “Where are you taking her?”

Geralt straightens up. “It’s a surprise.”

Jaskier rolls his eyes in response. “I won’t tell her.”

“You haven’t seen much of Chicago either,” Geralt says.

Jaskier squints at him. It takes a moment. “is this your way of inviting me, too?”

“Yes,” Geralt says.

Jaskier looks like he’s biting back a smile. “It’s true I haven’t been sightseeing much since moving here,” he says.

“Does eight work? Or too early?”

“Eight works,” Jaskier says, turning to grab some rosemary before going to the door. Geralt waits a beat longer—for the sake of propriety. And to grab something random to leave with. And to make sure his face looks completely impassive when he exits, too.

He and Jaskier are the models of efficiency for the rest of the night, quickly moving through tickets, moving liquidly past each other behind the counter. When the night wraps up, and Ciri is standing at the door ready to go, Jaskier’s deep in conversation with Ren and a few other servers. They all look up as Geralt walks by.

“Good night,” he says, a bit stiffly.

“Yes, chef,” Jaskier says, and the warm, private look in his eyes is worth it, even with the blast of cold night air as Geralt steps outside.

*

The day dawns clear and suspiciously mild—it’s supposed to even hit the low fifties. Even so, he encourages Ciri to bring her gloves and her hat—Coën’s hat.

“Could be colder where we go,” he says.

Ciri gives him a nonplussed look. “Are we leaving town?”

“No. Are you ready?”

Ciri zips up her coat, although her face is still mystified. “Ready!”

By the time their taxi has pulled up to Jaskier’s, her grin is exuberant enough to match Jaskier’s as he slides in next to her.

“Geralt is being _very_ mysterious with his event planning, isn’t he?” he asks, by way of greeting. “Do you have the slightest inkling where we’re going?”

Ciri shakes her head no, nearly vibrating in her seat. It seems to be sinking in for her finally that today will be an adventure, a new place she hasn’t gone to before. Geralt feels a slight squeeze in his chest, looking at her. He wishes he would have thought to do this sooner.

They go to Willis Tower first—Geralt bustles them out of the busy taxi, and into the building, before the location really seems to sink in. By the time they’ve waited in line and are heading up the interminably long elevator ride, Ciri seems to have figured it out.

“Dara’s mom works here somewhere,” she tells Jaskier matter-of-factly, “although I doubt we’ll see her today.”

“Probably so,” Jaskier agrees. His breath whooshes out when the SkyDeck opens its views in front of them. They can see for miles over the city and beyond, the distant blue of Lake Michigan. “Oh, Jesus, that’s pretty.”

“Geralt!” Ciri says, pointing. “Look!”

Ciri _would_ immediately gravitate toward The Ledge, the narrow, enclosed glass box that extends out from the building. Ciri grabs onto Geralt’s hand, palm clammy, and pulls him out into it with her. He looks down and regrets it, jerks his head up in time to see Jaskier with his phone out, taking a photo.

“Keep laughing,” he says, “it’s your turn next.”

Jaskier sobers up remarkably quickly.

From there, they take a short cab ride to the Art Institute, where Ciri manages to scramble through the growing swell of tourists to the feet of one of the green lions guarding the front of the building. She smiles wide for Jaskier, who whips out his phone again.

He leans down to show Ciri the different angles he got as they walk up the street toward Millennium Park.

“I can send these to you,” Jaskier says over his shoulder to Geralt. “The Lion and your lion cub.”

“Save your battery,” Geralt says, pointing ahead to what’s next on the list—the famous Chicago Bean, its reflective surface glinting in the sunshine.

Ciri pulls at his sleeve. “We’ve _got_ to get closer,” she says. “I’ve seen pictures of this before!”

All told, they probably spend half an hour there, walking around and beneath the Bean, where Jaskier leads Ciri in making funny faces at their distorted reflections. Jaskier holds his phone up and away from him and angles so that Geralt, Ciri, and the Bean are in the shot, too.

“You know,” he says, looking at the picture, and then to Geralt, “am I crazy, or does the Bean more resemble a cashew?”

“Don’t start,” Geralt warns, but without any real heat.

“Better get your EpiPen, Jaskier,” Ciri says, catching on, and laughs when Jaskier says _Heartless, both of you. Heartless_.

By then, it’s nearly noon when Geralt steers them to a free taxi and over to Navy Pier. It’s colder by the water, nothing to block the wind, as they slowly amble up the pier. They sit on a bench while Ciri ducks into the restroom.

“This has been,” Jaskier says, “a remarkable day already. I had no idea you were such a planner, Geralt.”

He shrugs. “This is basic tourist stuff. Worth it, I think—I’ve never gone much to these places, either. But if it were up to me we’d go other places. Less people.”

“Yeah? Like where?”

Geralt thinks for a moment. “Not sure. But it would be nice to take Roach—my motorcycle—out of the city sometime. Have a destination elsewhere in mind.”

“Your motorcycle, Roach,” Jaskier repeats.

“Yeah.”

“And you think Ciri and I would be joining you?”

Geralt cocks a head toward Jaskier, who waves a hand to encompass the both of them, and then toward the bathroom where Ciri is.

“How would three people fit?” he asks. “Where would _I_ go?”

Geralt has to think again. It’s true there would hardly be room for him and Ciri holding on behind him.

“Sidecar,” he finally says, which makes Jaskier laugh so hard he nearly slides off the bench.

He’s had enough of heights by the time they reach the ferris wheel, but he pays for Ciri and Jaskier’s ride on it, keeps an eye on their car as it travels to the highest point and around again. It is nice, he thinks, that there’s someone he feels safe leaving Ciri with, that Ciri likes. It’s nice that Jaskier seems to feel the same, that his idea of a fun time would be spending time with not just Geralt but with Ciri, too. When their ride’s done, Jaskier’s shivering a bit—he didn’t layer up, like Ciri did—so Geralt lets Ciri walk a few steps ahead and pulls Jaskier’s hand into his to warm it up. Jaskier shoots him a grateful look, doesn’t say anything, as they walk hand in hand back to the other end of the pier.

They’re hungry by that point, and flagging a bit. So Geralt directs the cab to a nondescript strip mall further from downtown, where there’s a small restaurant called Taste of Poland between a laundromat and an insurance office. Ciri doesn’t question it, but Jaskier cocks an eyebrow at him as he walks in.

“Anything in particular I should order?” he asks.

“The hunter’s stew,” Geralt says, so Jaskier does—they all do. While waiting at a table in the corner, Geralt explains.

“The restaurant’s owned by an old friend of Vesemir’s. I try to stop in when I can, though it doesn’t look like she’s here today. She taught Vesemir how to make the stew—then he taught me.”

“Vesemir has friends?” Ciri asks.

“Vesemir’s _friend_ ,” Jaskier says, with the ghost of a wink. He’s not wrong.

“Oh.”

They fall silent as three bowls are put in front of them. In fact, there’s little talk until their bowls are spooned empty. It’s just as good as Geralt remembers. Every cook has their own way of slightly altering the ingredients required: Vesemir liked to make it sweeter, Geralt’s slightly sour, although they both kept the trick of adding just a little cream of mushroom, as it was taught to them. Otherwise he stays faithful to the recipe. He smirks a little at Jaskier’s blissed-out expression.

“I’m going to compose a song about this meal,” Jaskier says. “But only after I’ve taken a nap.”

Geralt stretches, lets his arm hang loose from the seatback of the chair next to him. “Hunter’s stew is a good example of a pretty traditional Polish dish, hm?”

“Is this the part where you lecture me about how the recipe’s been untouched for three centuries?”

Geralt shakes his head. “Most of the ingredients stay the same, but everyone makes theirs a little different. There’s room for… innovation.”

Jaskier opens his mouth to respond, and then closes it. “Geralt, is this a _metaphor_?” The look on his face makes Geralt want to squirm.

“Forget I said anything.”

“Oh ho ho, that I won’t do. Did you hear that, Ciri? Geralt’s willing to compromise just a little on what constitutes real, pure Polish food. The heavens just opened, there are choirs of angels—”

Beneath the table, he feels Jaskier’s boot nudge his, stroke over his ankle. He looks away, still feeling like the tips of his ears are a little red. The truth is that he planned the day with Ciri in mind, but this stop was for Jaskier. He won’t, of course, be forgetting the night with the blindfold anytime soon. But even if it ended up being more than just a little food, a little talk, Geralt has still been thinking back to the variety Jaskier had shown him that night.

Cahir’s only ever given him a small corner of the menu for Polish items. Geralt’s allowed that. But he thinks he and Jaskier should probably have a conversation, and sometime soon, about revamping the menu. Bringing both of their talents to reflect on what’s offered there. Maybe Geralt doesn’t have to have such an iron fist over all things food at White Wolf anymore. Maybe it would be a shame if only Geralt ever got to try what Jaskier had cooked for him that night.

“You guys are weird,” Ciri says, shaking her head at them.

By the time they’ve paid, it’s only a couple hours until Jaskier’s show. Jaskier has to show up early, anyways, and there’d be little point in returning to the apartment if they would just as soon be leaving it again. Instead, they stop by Jaskier’s to get the lute and from there go straight to The Hideout. So that’s how Geralt and Ciri find themselves meeting Jaskier’s bandmates, watching as Ciri takes it upon herself to help with the soundcheck. Jaskier sheds his peacoat to reveal the close-fitting blue crewneck he’ll be performing in.

“I’ll be sitting over there,” Geralt says, thinking it’s time to get out of the way, and gestures to the same table as last time. He and Ciri aren’t alone long—the room is rapidly filling, and one by one the restaurant crew filters in, double-takes at Geralt holding down the table, and comes over to join him. Téa, Borch, Ren, the line cooks. They order pitchers for the table and a Shirley Temple for Ciri.

“So,” Ren says, nudging his arm, “You’re back.”

“I’m back.”

“Because Ciri wants to hear the music, right?” She laughs at whatever his face is doing. “Well, it’s nice that you’re doing that for her.”

Down the table, Ciri is excitedly telling everyone about their day. There are a lot of _Jaskiers_ peppered into her description: the view she and Jaskier saw from the ferris wheel, the funny pictures Jaskier took at the Bean. Geralt hadn’t thought about saying anything to her, and there’s a part of him that already knows the kitchen has suspected something. No one, aside from Ren, has had the courage to say anything to him directly, but—still. He’s always tried to keep his private life just that.

But now there’s Ciri in his life, and Jaskier, and he has to realize that not everything can stay that way anymore—private, closed-off. He takes another long sip from his beer.

If he could keep having days like today with Ciri and Jaskier, he won’t mind if they can’t stay private afterward.

The lights dim down, and he watches as Jaskier saunters onto the stage with his bandmates. He doesn’t say anything to the crowd, just immediately launches into the lyrics—

“Tastes like strawberries on a summer evenin’, and it sounds just like a song—”

Geralt assumes that he imagined the raunchy wink sent in the direction of his table, but is less sure when the song ends and the applause dies down.

“That was ‘Watermelon Sugar,’ by Harry Styles,” Jaskier says. “We’re Bard, and tonight, we just want to make you dance.”

Supposedly he is talking to the crowd at large, but no sooner has he launched into a bouncy, peppy version of Beyonce’s “Drunk In Love,” then people at the tables around him are moving to stand up, swaying to the music, singing along. When he transitions into Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” Ciri is tapping insistently at his shoulder.

“Please!” she shouts over the music. “Just this once!”

Jaskier’s grinning wide up on the stage, singing close to the mic, by the time Geralt is standing like a stump in the middle of the dance floor, Ciri using his hand to twirl and pirouette from.

“You can do better than that!” he calls cheerily to the crowd, pausing to take a sip of water, before leading the band into the opening notes of Taylor Swift’s “Trouble.” Geralt lets Ciri take both his hands and swing his arms back and forth in an approximation of dance. Ciri seems to find the sight of Geralt doing this so funny that she nearly doubles over.

By now, Geralt has no doubt that when Jaskier said he wanted to make “you” dance, he specifically meant Geralt. By the time they return to their seats at the end of the set, and the band is being applauded into an encore, Ciri is so tired her feet are nearly dragging. She reaches for her drink and sucks the last dregs from it.

“That was… so fun,” she pants.

The encore’s winding up, and he watches as Jaskier slings his lute over his shoulder, jumps down easily from the stage. He remembers what Ren said last time, about watching who Jaskier makes a beeline for after his set. This time, there can be no saying that it’s a fluke. His eyes meet Geralt’s as he winds through the crowd toward them, his cheeks flushed from the energy of the performance.

“I wish every day could be like this,” Ciri says, slumping her head against Geralt’s shoulder. He smiles down at her blonde head, thinking it’ll be a miracle if she manages not to fall asleep between now and when the taxi pulls up to home.

“Me, too,” he agrees.


	9. Chapter 9

This time of the morning, he normally hears Ciri up and around the apartment even before him—the sound of her brushing her teeth in the bathroom, the cheerful _ding_ of the toaster as she makes a quick breakfast. That’s the first sign that there’s something wrong—that it’s like he’s alone in the apartment.

Geralt finds her still in bed, the light off, her back to the window.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, coming to the bedside. “Are you sick?”

After a moment, she shakes her head, not even looking up from the pillow. Geralt sits down on the edge of the bed.

“Is there…” he says. “Are you anxious about going to school today? Are you in a fight with Dara?”

Ciri shakes her head again.

“You’ve got to help me out, Ciri,” he says. “What’s the matter?”

What follows is a silence so long that he’s about to ask again, when Ciri finally turns, her face miserable.

“It’s my dad,” she whispers.

Geralt swallows, moves closer. “What about him?”

“I—I had so much fun this weekend,” Ciri says. “And… I woke up this morning, and I remembered him again.” She sniffles and pushes her hand across her nose. “I _forgot_ about him all weekend, because I was having so much fun. And this weekend wouldn’t have even happened if he wasn’t—if he wasn’t—”

Her face crumples, trying to say the word and failing. Understanding dawns on Geralt.

“Princess,” he says, and pushes her face into his chest, hugging her as she cries. It’s a long time before she’s done.

“I’m going to be late to school,” she says, her voice muffled against Geralt’s shirt.

“You’re not going to school today,” Geralt says, deciding for them both. He can still remember when he left her at the hospital once, at the beginning of this—unfathomable, now, to think that he ever could have left her when she might have needed him. “And I’m not going to work.”

That gets a reaction from her. She leans back so she can look him in the face. “How come?”

“More important things,” he says.

Ciri lets her face fall against his shirt again. He can feel a damp spot from her cheek. “I’m important things,” she says after a long, quiet moment.

“You are,” he agrees.

When Ciri falls asleep again, he gently slips out of her bedroom and back to his. His cellphone is on the nightstand.

 _I’m not coming in today_ he texts to Jaskier. He then texts the same to Cahir.

Jaskier’s response is almost immediate. _Everything okay?_

_Ciri’s not feeling well._

He watches the dots in the corner of his screen as Jaskier texts a response. _Send her my love._

A slight smile touches Geralt’s lips. He puts the phone away and goes to the kitchen to start making breakfast.

It is a good day to stay home—outside, it’s overcast, rainy. Ciri digs up some old movies—home videos that Coën had transferred to DVD—and they sit on the couch and watch baby Ciri’s first steps, her first time seeing snow, babbling nonsense words to her father behind the camera. These are the years that Geralt missed—years he’d barely seen his brother and Ciri both. Ciri leans against Geralt’s shoulder and they both laugh when baby Ciri, on screen, runs her tricycle into a fence by accident. The camera work is shaky as Coën runs over to make sure Ciri’s okay, his hand coming into view to help her stand up, dust herself off.

Geralt only realizes it’s dinner time when Ciri says so. As attuned as he is to White Wolf, and normally being there at this time, it’s surprisingly easy now to relinquish the reins to Jaskier without a second thought. He knows the other man can handle it.

There’s a knock on the door then, and Geralt finds a food delivery man with a bulging bag.

“Wrong apartment,” Geralt says, already moving to swing the door shut. “I didn’t order anything.”

The man squints at the receipt, fumbling over the name there. “It’s from, uh, Jazz-care?”

Geralt huffs out a sigh. “Alright, yeah, it’s for me.”

Ciri comes into the kitchen only seconds after Geralt takes the food there, sniffing ecstatically.

“What is _that_?”

“Indian food, I think,” he says. “Be right back.”

Ciri’s getting them plates and utensils for the table when Geralt walks back to the bedroom, thumbs open the lockscreen. It’ll be busy at White Wolf now; he doubts Jaskier will see this for a while.

_Thank you for the food._

When he’s getting ready for bed, later, his phone vibrates.

_Just wanted you to have some adequate nutrition ;)_

Jaskier’s referencing their conversation from the first time he ever came over—Geralt saying that cooking for his brothers growing up was a way to give them adequate nutrition, and Jaskier reminding him that this was the same as caring for someone’s wellbeing. He shouldn’t be surprised by Jaskier’s thoughtfulness anymore, the way he feels present even when he isn’t.

He and Ciri camp out in the living room for the rest of the night, fall asleep with home videos still playing on low volume.

In the morning, Ciri seems better, but still quiet. She doesn’t say that she doesn’t feel well, would probably go off to school without a fuss. But Geralt has eyes.

 _Won’t be in today, either_ he texts to Jaskier, then to Cahir.

 _I’ve got you covered until Ciri’s better_ Jaskier says minutes later. _Need anything?_

_We’re fine, thanks._

They leave the apartment for the first time in the afternoon. Their taxi stops first at a florist’s, where Ciri puts together a small bouquet. Then they stop at the cemetery, which is the first they’ve been back since Coën was buried. The small patch of color from the bouquet looks nice against the headstone when Ciri gently places it down.

Geralt’s hands are shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket, but he frees one up for Ciri to hold.

“Hi, dad,” she says. “It’s me—it’s Ciri.” The wind’s blowing her hair into her mouth; she pushes it away. “I miss you so much. Everything’s different now, and even though it isn’t _bad_ , I wish you were here so I could show you. I wish I could take you to the restaurant, or to go dancing with me, or to the top floor of Willis Tower. And sometimes when I’m happy I get sad because it’s hard to be happy without you. But I am happy with Geralt. I’m glad you chose him for me.”

Ciri looks up at Geralt. “Is that okay?”

Geralt nods. “That was really good.”

When they leave the cemetery and return to the apartment, Geralt’s almost not surprised to meet the same food delivery man in the act of leaving a bag on the mat.

“Jazz-care again,” the man tells him.

“Hmm.”

This time, it’s ramen. Geralt and Ciri slurp noodles at the kitchen counter in contented silence.

“What are you thinking for tomorrow?” Geralt asks.

“I think I want to see Dara again,” Ciri says. “And I miss art class.”

“Alright,” Geralt agrees. “That sounds good.”

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and sends off a text to Jaskier.

_Ciri and I are thankful for the food._

Later, closer to White Wolf’s closing time, he finally hears back. _It’s my pleasure._ And then, _I miss you both!_

Geralt glances up, makes sure Ciri hadn’t seen him start to smile at his phone before he caught himself.

_How are things at the restaurant?_

Jaskier’s text back is slightly longer in coming. _Good? Mostly good. I’ll tell you when I see you._

_I should be back tomorrow._

Jaskier’s response is filled with a profusion of happy-face emojis, balloons, and stars. Geralt wavers for a moment—he’s never used emojis—then hesitantly sends back a thumbs-up.

Ciri seems well-rested the next morning, returning to her usual routine of getting up before him to get ready and eat a quick breakfast.

“How are you feeling?” Geralt asks her.

She cocks her head. “Pretty good. I’m excited to tell Dara about what we did over the weekend.”

Her animation only grows on the ride to school as she wonders aloud what she missed in the last two days. She nearly forgets to take her backpack when she gets out of the car.

“Bye, Geralt,” she says, throwing a quick arm around his shoulders. “Love you!” And she rushes off.

Geralt watches her go, her blonde head disappearing as she runs up the steps and through the front door of the school. He is glad Coën chose him for her, too.

*

Geralt’s surprised by the enthusiasm that greets his return to the restaurant, but him missing a day of work—let alone two—is so unheard of that it seems the kitchen has very nearly missed him. He returns their welcomes—they’re just as happy to see Ciri, posted up in his office again to do her homework—and hardly notices that Cahir only gives him a brief nod before exiting the kitchen.

“Do you need a tour?” Ren says. “After so long away, it might be hard to remember your way around.”

“Very funny,” he says.

“It was all that dancing at Jaskier’s show,” Téa says. “Wore him out. He was on bedrest for days.”

“Yes, his _masterful_ footwork—”

Geralt’s shaking his head as most of the kitchen laughs at his expense, although there’s one teasing voice he hasn’t heard yet—Jaskier’s. He looks around and sees Jaskier leaning against the wall by the freezer, smiling at Geralt. And yes, it only has been a few days, but Geralt isn’t expecting how his heart seems to kick up at the sight of him. It’s only been since the weekend, and that’s been long enough.

Jaskier inclines his head toward the freezer door, then straightens up and opens it, walking through. Geralt stalls for a few more minutes—calls out some orders, gets a few cheery _yes chef_ s in response—before following.

He half-expects Jaskier to immediately surge into his arms, kiss him against the shelves, but Jaskier doesn’t. Which is fine—Geralt can be professional, too. He smiles at Jaskier, glad to be alone with him at last.

“What’s up?”

“It’s been a couple of days,” Jaskier says. “There’s your face again.”

“Yes,” Geralt agrees. “And there’s yours.”

Jaskier laughs, shakes his head. “I have… news,” he says. His smile is still a bit ambivalent, slightly sheepish. “I think it’s a bit weird, but I’d rather be completely transparent with you.”

“Alright,” Geralt says. He’s willing to indulge this, wait Jaskier out. “What’s the matter?”

“Cahir offered me a job,” Jaskier says. He tilts his head, awaiting Geralt’s reaction. “Your job.”

Geralt’s good mood dissipates like smoke. His mind reels, so completely blindsided that he’s at a loss for words. Jaskier looks closely at him, frowns.

“I was surprised, too,” he says. “He approached me yesterday, something about _anger issues_ and _dependability._ I just thought you should know.”

Geralt’s mood coalesces around a new feeling—anger. After all this time, being told he was being too paranoid, too suspicious, too controlling. To think he was gone those two days feeling completely secure in Jaskier’s ability to run the kitchen in his stead. He’d never seen this coming, and can now only feel stupid for allowing this to happen to him.

He straightens up, takes a step away from Jaskier.

“Thank you for informing me,” he says icily.

Jaskier nods. “I know it might make things awkward, with Cahir…” he trails off. “I’m sorry, Geralt. Especially with the timing with Ciri, it’s very underhanded.”

Geralt can almost feel a vein ticking in his forehead.

“Yes, I’m sure that’s why yesterday was only _mostly good_ , knowing you’d have to break the news about your new job once I came back.”

“Wait a second, Geralt,” Jaskier says. “That’s not—”

He shakes his head, barks out a laugh. “This situation is such a pile of shit. Of course you came here because you wanted to work with me, but working behind my back has even greater benefits, I guess. Sleeping with me on the side was just a perk.”

There’s more he wants to say, explosive words building behind his teeth, but the words die away. Jaskier’s face registers surprise, confusion, hurt, and then nothing. His normally expressive face goes blank.

“Ah,” Jasker says. “I see.”

He opens his mouth, closes it. Shakes his head. And then he reaches behind him and begins to untie his apron.

“What,” Geralt says, unnerved by the silence more than anything else. Jaskier lifts the apron over his head, balls it in a fist. “Really? There’s nothing else you hav to say?”

“It has become startling clear, just now,” Jaskier says, “that the thought I could ever actually work as your equal in the kitchen, fifty-fifty, is pure fantasy. I thought I had your trust by now, but no. All it takes is one little push for you to make me into your enemy again.”

Jaskier’s lips thin. He looks around and pushes the apron onto a shelf behind him. And then he’s walking past Geralt, to the door, and stops.

“For the record, I told Cahir no,” Jaskier says. “It’s good to know where we stand with each other, isn’t it?”

He glances briefly at Geralt, and his blank face cracks, for just a moment. He looks incredibly betrayed, as betrayed as Geralt had felt only moments before.

“Fuck,” Geralt breathes. He reaches out to the other man. “Wait, Jaskier—”

“I think I’ve heard enough,” Jaskier says, and pushes out the door.

For a moment, Geralt stays alone in the freezer. He’s already felt more emotions in the last five minutes than he normally feels in a week, and his mind is still buzzing, trying to pick up the pieces. He’d jumped to a bad conclusion. He’d yelled at Jaskier, incriminating words, when Jaskier hadn’t done anything besides warn him what he’d already known—that Cahir was an underhanded snake.

He has to catch up to Jaskier—he has to apologize. But when he comes out of the freezer, he stutters to a stop. Everyone in the kitchen is looking at him, their faces a range of dismay. Ciri runs up to him.

“Jaskier just said goodbye,” she says, upset. “He said he quit. What happened? Geralt?”

Geralt doesn’t know how to answer. He only knows he’s made a big mistake.

**Author's Note:**

> The American city- Polish food scene-Witcher adaptation that no one asked for.


End file.
